I think what he's getting at which I agree with is that while the idea sounds cool, its not something 'totally new'. Its offering backups and data security which a user can have right now anyway if they plan things out. I think the option is great for people that dont do any kind of routine backups.
For example (I'm going to use windows for my examples because I primarily use that for my main system). These are things I've done to make sure I'm safe no matter what. In my opinion its not that difficult or intrusive.
-Made a System Image of the computer with nothing but the OS installed. I did this when I first built my machine. Burnt it to DVD - 2 copies.
-Make a secondary System Image after I installed all my main apps and hardware support for my devices and burnt it to DVD, again made 2 copies.
-Mounted my documents folder to my network server which stores the data on a mirrored 250GB set. Weekly full backups and incrementals done daily to a external USB 2.0 320GB drive. The backups run at 4am to ensure I never experience any slowdowns on my network when using the computer.
In addition to the above, whenever I'm working on an important document, I keep my own revisions. I mean how hard is it to have say a file called "resume" and when making a change, save as "resume-2".."resume-3"..etc? I could use the Vista previous version function to restore documents to a previous state but I've never needed it because its part of my process and its not any extra work.
Also the cost of what I've done is not high. My 'server' was a free computer given to me as it was obsolete. I added a $25 SATA controller, $13 USB 2.0 controller, $99 external HD, 2x $65 for the 250GB SATA drives. So the data redundancy and storage and all ended up being about $260 or so to implement. Power consumption is less than 100W so its not adding a huge drain. I dont even have a keyboard and mouse connected to the box. Just sits tucked out of the way and if I need, I can remote desktop into it.
So being old and miserable is the position you hold at Macrumors correct?