That was far better than re-installing Windows, Office and the myriad updates, not to mention drivers.
For the vast majority of non-technical people who use computers in a personal context, starting fresh from a clean slate after a major event would do them a lot of good !
People accumulate a lot of crap on their computers over the years, and then on top of that, systems like Windows start suffering from registry and profile bloat. You really don't want to be backing that up, and then restoring the same crap onto your computer. And that's before we start to consider the possibility of you backing up viruses that you didn't notice until it was too late.
There is very little point backing up software and operating systems.