Well, you don't have to fiddle with drop statements and tag.gz formats and things like that and restoring is just a matter of putting the file back instead of i

Well, you don't have to fiddle with drop statements and tag.gz formats and things like that and restoring is just a matter of putting the file back instead of importing huge numbers SQL instructions. You don't depend on php/phpmyadmin or a sql command to get a backup or to run it (no cpu are harmed during the process). Just copy the file. I can see old gotchas disappear like that (can't wait for the new ones !).