Hello Jeremy, Francois & Richard :
I hear you all about DiskWarrior - Good piece of software to keep the Mac working !!
The main reason for the other utilities is that I live in the part of the world where Mac are not completely rare, but rare enough - One has to "find" Apple/Mac specialists/repair shops and from this perspective I feel its better that I arm myself with the appropriate tools in the event when "things" go wrong.
Your experience is similar to mine where "things" normally don't fall apart on the Mac, but for reasons explained, I would prefer to maintain the comp myself as much as possible.
Cheers,
Jai