Truly Clean installation on HP Pavilion DV7 3085DX

Truly Clean installation on HP Pavilion DV7 3085DX

Okay, I believe this is my first question on this area, I'm more of a
Stack Overflow user, so please feel free to re-tag this question if
needed.
First of all I own an HP DV7 3085DX laptop, as the title states, and one
of the coolest features I've encountered with HP laptops (I don't know if
any other laptops have this feature) is the ability to restore the laptop
to its original factory settings.
Sadly most laptops have bloatware and HP laptops have a LOT, so I've been
researching online about making a clean installation while keeping the
Windows 7 (x64 Home Premium, in my case) OEM activation.
I came across this guide 'The HP Laptop Out-Of-The-Box Guide 2.0 for
Windows 7' which teaches you how to do this in a series of steps (Back up
'SwSetup' folder in the root, usually c:, Create Recovery Discs, Install &
activate Windows with your original key).
I've created the recovery disks, backed up the SwSetup folder, and I'm
about to install windows without using the Recovery Manager, to achieve a
really clean installation.
Now, my questions:
I'm not formatting the 'D' partition aka RECOVERY, but what's the point of
having that partition if I've created the Recovery Discs **and** backed up
the SwSetup folder?
I think, more than I really know, that partition is used when you actually
use the Recovery Manager, but I wont be having that tool available by
doing a clean installation so is there any reason not to format & merge
the RECOVERY partition to the C drive?
I've never used the recovery discs so will I get the same *result* using
the recovery discs **or** the recovery manager?
And the most important questions are what happens if I delete the recovery
partition and try to use the recovery discs? Will this recreate the
RECOVERY partition?