Partition and Image Your Hard Drive with the System Rescue CD
 

You've reinstalled Windows from scratch again but this time you want to preserve your sparkling clean setup for instant restoration down the road. Instead of dropping cash on Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image, burn yourself a free, bootable Linux-based System Rescue CD. The System Rescue CD includes open source tools GParted

http://lifehacker.com/software/geek-...-cd-292972.php

It is not the lack of tools, free or otherwise, people just don't image a good running and freshly installed OS until the moment they need it.:D
OS even encourages users to store image and data to OS partition so that everything could disappear together.;)

OS is not responsible for how you setup your data & backup ;)
it can only do so much

Not difficult neither. Setup can always prompt to partition creation; Document, Photos folders can always be asked and recommended to store to outside OS parition. After all, this is what smart software and computing is all about.:)

yes and no, not all people work the same way, OS should give you choices ( you can easily move "my documents" in 2000/xp/Vista) and let you make one