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I also spent many years maintaining bootable backup clones of Macs. But I don’t think the problem you stated actually exists. You should not lose all your configurations in the event of a reinstall/restore today.
In recent versions of macOS (I think starting with macOS 11?), Apple started strictly segregating system data from user data. The main reason was safety/security and reliability: Third parties are no longer allowed to modify the core system. But the major advantage of this is, because user and system data are now strictly separated, it is possible to completely delete and replace macOS without affecting user data and configurations. And SSV verification (see below) means the OS cannot become corrupted as easily as in the past.
Another advantage of that separation is that it’s now possible to make a complete backup without having to also back up the actual system files. This saves a lot of backup space, and allows a restore to any Mac, and without a local copy of macOS. You would just grab a Mac, and your backup, have it restore, and it will reinstall macOS from the Internet and then restore your user data to that area of the Mac. The result should be identical to the Mac that was originally backed up.
As long as backups are kept up to date, it should be possible to completely recover from a total hardware failure, as long as there is another current Mac to use.
Yes, it’s too bad bootable backups are not supported, but due to the above, bootable backups are also not as useful as before. As Macs became more reliable, I found myself needing to use my bootable backups less and less. The price of staying on a 2012 Intel Mac is losing out on ten years of quite productive advances by both Apple and Adobe. I had a 2011 Intel MacBook Pro that was great, but given the sheer performance and immense battery life of the current Macs, I would never go back now. Using an Intel Mac is now painful…they are slower (especially graphics), they run hotter.
Maybe you already read the following info by Mac expert Howard Oakley, but if not, they will help you understand how things work now, particularly regarding the separation of system data from user data, and how Recovery mode works in case of a failure:
Rethinking recovery and re-installing macOS
Best practice for an M1 Mac is to ensure that it’s fully backed up, Data and external volumes only, to separable external storage. Should a problem arise which require Recovery, then it should be started up in primary Recovery mode. If necessary, it can then have its macOS container erased, a fresh copy installed, and migration performed from the backup. Cloning to or installing macOS on a backup disk serves no useful purpose, and just wastes 15 GB of space.
Do you still need that external bootable disk?
The other [reason for a bootable clone] is to provide a fallback macOS known to work, in the event that the upgraded macOS has problems that can’t be solved. These most commonly arose as the result of defective or failed upgrades, which have largely been addressed by Apple’s new updater/installer and the use of the Signed System Volume (SSV), which verifies every last bit in the System volume is correct. There will always be users who want to have a fallback bootable disk, but that can easily be created by a normal macOS install, rather than requiring any form of cloning.
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