Custom Factory Restore vs the Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD

[Sheridan Thinkpad]

Could anyone tell me if there is an effective difference between doing a custome factory restore where you uncheck every bit of bloatware (leaving just the drivers) and the procedure explained over at notebookreview forums:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=144783

In a nutshell that procedure allows you to completely bypass your recovery media and reinstall Vista using a $5 "Vista Anytime Upgrade" DVD that you can get from Microsoft or even CompUSA. It's definitely more complicated, as you have to supply all the Lenovo drivers you need and perform some special steps with a USB key to activate Vista once it's installed. But the key benefit is that there is basically NO CHANCE of having any third party software or even Lenovo "extras" installed on your Thinkpad, and you're in total control of what is put on your system.

Of course using the traditional method of custom factory restore DVD's one can also uncheck all the extra software. But I'm still suspicious. Does anyone know if one can get "as clean" an install as the method listed above when using the Lenovo DVD's?