On the contrary, given the huge risks being taken here, you would think that the recovery/reimage solution would be the thing that they would test the most!
On the other hand, downloading 3 gb to wipe doesn't really sound that bad concidering the way to do that used to be to download the entire OS and format the disk
Why would you download anything? It seems possible to have a DVD/BluRay or USB disk with the golden copy on it, or the OS itself should be able to restore itself to factory settings.