[escobar]

The main reason I don't do this is because I'm often installing the OS to a brand new (blank) drive that has absolutely no recovery on it.

[X-Istence]

It is part of the ROM. It can be done with a blank drive.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/07/20/internet-recovery-lets-n...

So the drive doesn't even have recovery on it.