Yeah, I've pretty much given up on finding what you're looking for in Windows. I back up important files I'm actively using with Dropbox, have photos, music and such on a RAID of some sort on a NAS, contacts and calendar are on the Google server, but also downloaded into Dropbox regularly, and I just accept that I'll have to reinstall everything else if my computer dies.
I agree with you that something should be out there that does what you want, and does it well. I haven't found it, yet. I've been watching this thread hoping someone else will enlighten me!
I will say that Dropbox has been extremely useful for most of what I want for file backup and access across multiple platforms.