...that's the first I've heard of that. Yes, Google backs up the calendar and mail and contacts, but that was mostly because it's not really part of Android, but Google's other products. The nice sell of Android right from the get-go was that when you bought the phone, all you had to do was put in your Google credentials and you'd be off to the races, really able to use your phone without doing anything else.

As far as I know, Google does not back up the details, so to speak. Your settings are gone, especially all the settings in individual apps. If you had an alternate launcher with your homescreen set up just right, you can say goodbye to it because it's gone now.** To play fanboy/devil's advocate, I'd say that it's a lot harder to back up things like an alternate Launcher on Google's end than it is to backup where you put your icons on your home screen in iOS. But that's a trade-off.

Personally, I've wiped my phone tons of times. The ONLY thing I've disliked about the process is losing progress in games. That's what makes me wish I could save my games somewhere other than inside the app its self, which seems like a stupid place to store them. At least if I could chose the save location, I could upload saves to Dropbox or something.

**this is one reason I switched from Zeam to Apex Pro for my launcher. It lets be back up my settings.