I agree with your provisos as legitimate concerns.
However, I suspect I can get close to "pristine" (ie, not likely corrupted, nascently or otherwise, re 10.7.2 + updated third-party applications) by selecting my first backup as the restore version. The proof of the pudding will be in the eating (restoring), if such is ever necessary.
True, but
Your first backup will be lacking both some personality and perhaps much content which you'll have to drag piecemeal from later backups and
I believe your first backup will eventually be overwritten.
Fingers crossed that the issue will never be other than a hypothetical one.
I've been meaning to point out, and the present line of discussion is as good an opening as any, that a computer used to be self-sufficient in a sense...kinda like the Phoenix.
Even if you crashed and burned and lost everything, you always had that magic restore disc that you could pop into the slot and, in about an hour, have a brand new computer all ready to begin regrouping and collecting new data.
But now you need that damned high-speed Internet connection.
Boo!!!
Apple can keep its Restore partition; I'll be happy with a restore disc any time.
The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.
In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
