restore disk

I am in the process of purchasing a new PC which will be my first experience
with Vista. I was told by my retailer that Vista PCs are no longer sold with
Operating System Recovery disks to be used to reinstall the OS and drivers in
the event of a crash. They offered to create one for me (for a fee, of
course). I would not want to be without OS reinstallation capability as I
have had to wipe my hard drive clean on my XP PC multiple times (due to
viruses, poor performance, etc).

I have noticed on some discussion groups that Vista is partitioned
differently so that the OS can be reinstalled without using a Recovery disk.
Is this true? and can it be done easily by someone who knows how to
reinstall using a traditional Recovery disk? The bottom line is, do I need
to spend $$ to have a Recovery disk, or will I be OK without it? Thanks for
your help.