Trust not, you know way more than me, and everything you said is correct, but as a linux newbie myself I still think it is a good idea for a newb to create the partition magic rescue disks. If they do it right, yes, they will not be needed. But if they forget to change their bios (like I did) or they don't have the boot magic option installed, they could experience problems.
My machine came pre-loaded and didn't even have a windows recovery or boot disk. When I used pm, the machine "hung" on reboot because pm will set the new partition as active by default if you use its "add an os" wizard". The rescue disks saved me by allowing me to set the old windows partition as active, and then pop in my mandrake disks. I believe many machines are now not set to boot from the cd when they come off the shelf, like mine.
Anyway, just a thought because hackerdan seems like he has never done this before and like victorkaum said he might not feel comfortable with the installer, etc., and might want to use pm for the process.