[Klaustrophobia]

last time i did a full backup and reinstall, i lost many, many GB of files to corruption.  couple that with the fact that while yeah, i could get running again in a few hours, it will take MONTHS to get back all the little tweaks and odds 'n ends that make my setup JUST how i want it, and i'll never do a reformat unless it's the very last option.  i've never gotten noticeable performance back from it anyway.

[Mongoose]

I have noticed the performance boost on machines in the past, and my install is starting to get a bit flaky, but I'm with you, it's not worth the effort unless it's the only option available.

[Klaustrophobia]

i actually noticed a DECREASE on the last machine i did it to.  it was a laptop and i blame it on driver shenanigans and poor manufacturer support, but still.  i'm damn glad it was on a secondary drive and really just as an experiment. 

[Fury]

last time i did a full backup and reinstall, i lost many, many GB of files to corruption.  couple that with the fact that while yeah, i could get running again in a few hours, it will take MONTHS to get back all the little tweaks and odds 'n ends that make my setup JUST how i want it, and i'll never do a reformat unless it's the very last option.

Sounds like the computer you performed the backup process on or to has faulty hardware. At least it would be in your best interests to find out why backup was corrupted. And you know if you prefer to do a lot of customization, it might be advisable to document that so that restoring it is quickly done after reformat.

[Mikes]

when something gets in, you should blow up the entire house just to be sure. I know I wouldn't live safe knowing there's a slight possibility of something still lurking about, even if that turned up to be just remanent files.

That seems a bit...excessive.  I mean, provided you know you've nerfed whatever it is that got in, why go through the extreme hassle of wiping everything?

You don't know what else got in ...  so you could never be sure that there aren't real monsters under your bed now that are waiting for you to go to sleep

[BloodEagle]

You don't know what else got in ...  so you could never be sure that there aren't real monsters under your bed now that are waiting for you to go to sleep