To be honest I don't remember the thrill; I would only replace batteries when close to a computer, and considering HotSync fully transparent backup/restore work

To be honest I don't remember the thrill; I would only replace batteries when close to a computer, and considering HotSync fully transparent backup/restore worked quite well (or even the pilot-link I was using...) the risk was practically negligible. The only problem is that that it was quite slow for a full restore (even with fancy serial cradle, sigh). Heck, I'd sometimes just willingly let it hard-reset itself just for "cleanliness".