Helpfully the software wasn't all that crap, and they offer a software manager which you can download to put things like the hotkey functions back on anyway, so if you have an internet connection there's no need to have a 30gb restore image on a 128gb SSD. Whatever happened to the days they just supplied a DVD with the machine!
In fact why don't they just supply a 32Gb "restore" USB key in this day and age?
I was going to say because they've removed optical drives from a lot of laptops. But the 32GB USB drive is what should happen these days.
My MBA came with the OS and iLife on a USB stick.
Apple are doing it correctly then!
Was it worth the extra thou?
I don't think it was that much more TBH, but I can't remember how much it cost back in 2010 (yes, even then OS restore was being shipped on USB).
I mainly bought it for weight, OS X, and "ooooh shiney". And it's not disappointed on any front.
Apple don't do that any more, since Lion (where you could buy a USB restore stick) they have made a recovery partition on your HDD. With mountain lion they no longer offer a USB stick at all. The expectation is you'll just download it from the apple store in the event of disaster recovery.
I assume Macs can fuck up enough to not have internet access?