Last guy that checked in said he followed the procedure in less than a half hour and lost nothing - and that it might have taken less time but he was doing other while going through it.
It's pretty simple.
1. Backup what you have.
2. Reset to a known, clean configuration.
3. Restore from backup.
Android has a higher complexity and lower maturity than an iPhone or a Blackberry or a WinMO.
Risk factor in systems theory is defined as (complexity/maturity) so, yes, Android does represent a higher risk at this time.
It also offers resplendent advantages if properly managed.
A number of us would contend that some mismanagement has crept in.
The suggested procedure is certainly far less drastic and in some ways less problematic than performing a chkdsk and then cleaning registry rot out of a Windows desktop.
A number of Windows programs require a reboot to complete an installation and function.
Combine a few of those desktop functions and this takes less time and complexity.
The suggested procedure is straightforward and effective and may be considered by some to be not so drastic.
This is not a recommended step for ALL Android phones mind you - this is recommended for the Evo.
On other handsets, this move can be perilous.
That has been widely proven by many users on this forum to simply not be the case for this particular device.
If you had a full picture of the number of man hours a great number of us put into this particular implementation for this solution, I believe you'd find it quite well-vetted.
And worthwhile.
The problem with dealing with this sort of problem symptomatically, as you suggest, is that at this point in time, no Android tool exists to let users know if they're actually fixing problems or side effects, and if fixing problems - are they fixing the root cause or a resultant problem?
Not using the same approach to multitasking as an iPhone, you might find that not all data / cache areas are as compartmentalized as you would find on the Apple device.
This approach ensures that the user is not merely fixing a symptom, nor merely fixing a real problem caused by an unfixed underlying problem that will inevitably cause a recurrence of the problem originally thought fixed.
In that light, I would propose that this is far from drastic and is rather quite straightforward.