> Uhh..  EVERY machine (Except the SGI machines running XFS) I have has
> a separate /usr from /, in fact they all have separate (partitions or
> drives) /var, /usr, /home, /usr/pkgsrc...

> this is *basic* to how you lay out a reliable Unix system.
> Everything in one big / slice is BAD,

Eh.  No.

There are a lot of applications for which this is true.  But there are
also a lot of applications for which it's false.

If you tell me _why_ you think all-in-one-fs is "BAD", what you think
is so dreadful about it, I'll be happy to explain why it doesn't always
apply.

> otherwise, why is there even an /etc/fstab?

For the times when all-in-one-fs *is* the wrong way to go, of course.
For machines with multiple spindles.  For non-disk filesystems.  For
declaring swap partitions.  Probably for other things, but those four
should be enough.

> /sbin is for the important tools that need to be statically linked
> (notice the 's' in the beginning of 'sbin'?)

NetBSD has decided to disagree, and if you disagree with them on this
point you may want to go looking for another OS, one better suited to
your particular tradeoffs.

> so that if you bring the system up in single-user mode, you have some
> tools that *actually work* for recovering a down system, or adding
> disks, or moving filesystems around on to different disks, etc...

And /sbin works fine for that, unless you've gone and put /lib on a
separate filesystem from /sbin.

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