I haven't added anything to the discussion because most of it has been well beyond my ken. The takeaway lesson I got is that a bootable backup disk for OS X Lion isn't possible, even though some of the contributors say it is. From the discussion it would certain be beyond my power to do it — although I'm hopeful that by going page by page through Pogue's book I might at some point take a stab at it.
At one point a senior advisor at Apple suggested that he might be able to provide that thumb drive with Lion install info on it gratis, but he'd have to obtain a special dispensation to do so (and he wasn't sanguine about the outcome). I gave up on Apple's tech support at that point.
As noted, I plan to go through all 900+ pages of Pogue's book (which arrived 11 hours ago) slowly and deliberately. Already I've learned that command-comma opens Preferences in all applications, as well as the iPad form (Magic Mouse) and function (MM behavior), which I had already come to terms with and am grateful to my sister for having allowed me to play (~ mess around) with her iPad back a couple months ago so that I came to the task quasi-primed. So I'll march on from there.
