What I’m too often seeing is clients messing with the system and library folders, because they think any folder they can access is up for grabs.

Keeping them in the home folder solves this problem for the most part.

I did NOT know about the limitations of Disk Utility, however. Thanks for pointing that out!

You’ll remember that before we had Time Machine, we used to have to use other, more difficult to use backup systems, such as Retrospect (yuck) or Apple’s Backup (double yuck) or God-Forbid, LaCie’s Silverkeeper (actually, that one wasn’t so bad.)
Anyway, because these utilities weren’t very good at creating bootable backups, and because it’s a bit overkill to use a tool like SuperDuper to back up your files every week, I learned to only backup my home directory. Therefore, I forced myself into the habit of storing no essential files behind the home directory, and I’ve been instructing clients in this vein ever since.

With Time Machine, it really doesn’t matter anymore, since everything is captured every hour on the hour, but best practices die hard.

Thanks for commenting!
~ Chris
@foleypod