Application Data Question(s)

I have done some research in the forms and here is my understanding of application data.

The app data must be contained within the application bundle. No common app data location exist or maybe more correctly is known/accessible.

You can save all your application data as part of the backup process within iTunes. Should the phone fail or needs to be replaced (providing you have a good backup) recovery is possible.

I know others here have reported problems with backup either taking forever to complete and failing to be useful when needed. At the moment, not really worried about that as I am hoping this will be addressed with the upcoming 2.1, iTunes 8 or both.

So, for day to day operation when you have the ability to do a full backup (which I hope doesn't continue to take forever) this might be acceptable. My concern is what happens if you are on vacation somewhere, find yourself updating app data and a single app fails or trashes its data. Granted you can recover back to prior to your vacation, but you will recover ALL application data basically losing everything you might have updated.

Several apps have developed either a web or desktop syncing ability but not all. My main concern is with some of the medical tracking apps for things like blood pressure or sugar levels. I really don't want to resort to double reporting these (like entering in a note or email) but really don't want to risk losing the information. Others apps include task managers, notes, financial tracking utilities, etc. I have found syncing versions of most of these (thanks to others here) but in some cases the cost can really start to add up.

So, now my questions. Is there really no other options? Do I need to just select apps which offer syncing options? Do you think it would make more sense for the iPhone OS to have a "data" storage location for application usage? How about an option in iTunes which allows recovery of a single item?

Thoughts/comments welcome.

 

Not a big fan of bumping post, but I would really like to hear others thoughts on this.