Oddly enough, although I've made backups even with Acronis - I always just do a fresh install just the same, lol. I guess it depends on your situation, and how much you despise doing a fresh install. I personally don't mind doing the reinstall since it takes so little time, and I have all my important stuff on separate drives. So it's not really a huge deal.
I can't really speak to whether cloning would be an issue though, sorry.