Try using that on a running system for real...

My moneys on an image file that is junk as you will be imaging a file system that is mounted Read/Write and has lots of data still cached in the kernel.

Also I would like to see you do the restore as well DD'ing over the top of a live file system sounds like an absolutely brilliant idea.

Your comparing PRE and POST tax prices in this article. What about adding the taxes to the US and Canadian prices? For example in Chicago you need to add ~10% on the price for taxes, this brings the post tax price to with in 10 USD of the UK price....