Ah, I was hoping I'd be the one to make that joke
OnTopic: This smells like cost-cutting - after all, that's what nearly all the PC manufacturers are doing - forcing the user to make their own recovery discs, and saving, what...a couple of bucks on *optical media*??
Apple's selling with such a high profit margin, that even if Lion *DOES* give you a backup partition, they should at least throw in the *ONE* disc that Macs generally come with.
So the new Macs that come pre-installed with Lion aren't going to give you a new Lion disc? That would be extremely cheap and lame for a company that prides itself on giving the customer everything they need (the "full experience") when they open the box...