Whether my opinion is valid really depends on your needs.
The things I really need when I back up a server are /var/, /etc/, and /opt/. Anything else can be regenerated.
Partition structure has little to do with directory structure. Backing up entire filesystems may preclude restoration to anything but a very similar machine.
Data files and system files really don't belong together. System files and utilities change rarely and on a regular schedule, data files change often.
Many daemons have ways to lock their datafiles for backup without shutting down the system.
There is a company called Storix that makes a mksysb-like product for Linux and Solaris. I just downloaded it to try for my Solaris 11 systems. Gonna play with Linux version too.
There is also a product name Bacula which runs on all popular Linux machines. This is schedule driven much the same as TSM. It is somewhat difficult to setup but once running is very effective, especially in a mixed paltorm environment. I had it backing up all my Linux, AIX, and Windows machines. That was until the Linux machine it was running on went bang.