[TouchPad Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sitlet:
It's not. Astro will only backup the apk file for the app, and only if the app isn't protected. Titanium will backup the app, it's data, market link, etc., and will do it for any app, including system apps.

Wiping cache/data/dalvik will not touch anything on the "sd card". And if you are worried about losing things, that's why you do a nandroid backup and backup apps with Titanium first.

You will have a fresh install, i.e. no extra apps on it. That's the whole point of wiping the "data" in clockwork. You CAN flash a rom without wiping the data, and all of your apps will still be there, but that is NOT recommended, especially when flashing a completely new rom like cm9. Just backup apps with Titanium, make a nandroid, then wipe everything.

This is how it is with the TP. Most android phones/tablets will have an internal memory AND an external SD card, thus being able to separate OS from other data. Since the TP only has one memory, and you are trying to run two OS's, this is the only way to do it.

It's all the same memory, just partitioned differently. And the 16gb of space is actually about 14gb due to blocking in the first place, and the WebOS takes about 2 gb to begin with.

Again, your TP ONLY has one 16gb block of memory, where most devices have more than one. It is partitioned to let the android OS think there is a separate internal and external memory, which is how it has to be for android to run. You can move apps to the sd card by going to settings-applications, however, with the TP, again, its the same memory, so you really aren't moving it.

The apps like gmail, maps, etc, all get updated regularly though the Market. Thus, once one gets updated, someone will update the gapps zip with the newer version. The reason you HAVE to flash it the first time, is because some of the apps are system apps, and flashing is the ONLY way to get them to work properly. Once they are on your system and installed, you can update regularly through the market. It doesn't matter if you flash an outdated gapps zip, as long as it is one for ICS cm9, and not GB cm7. If the apps are outdated when you flash them, the market should let you update them after your tablet runs for a few minutes and realizes the apps are outdated.

As long as you stick with Alpha 2, and NOT the nightlies, you should be fine. I haven't had one reboot in over a month.

Again, as I explained earlier, there are two backups you should make. First, use Titanium to backup any apps you want to keep, and their app data. Obviously you can just re-download any app from the market after you flash cm9, but Titanium gives you a one-click way of doing it, thus saving you time. AND Titanium will backup app's data, so if you have a game that you want to save your progress, backing up with Titanium will save that progress.

User files (i.e. anything in the mnt/sdcard folder) will NOT be touched when wiping cache/data/dalvik in clockwork. They will ONLY be lost if you select the option to wipe sd card in clockwork. Again, if you are worried about anything, backup your files to a computer first, which obviously if anything is important to you, you should already have a backup of that data somewhere.

Yes, unless you specifically tell clockwork to wipe sd card. Any pictures, music, documents that you loaded onto the device via usb automatically go to the sd card partition, and will not be touched when flashing a rom. But again, ALWAYS have a backup of your data just in case something goes wrong.

Again, I can't stress this enough: if you have data (pictures or whatever) that are important to you, make a backup somewhere off the device, just in case.