You may think that a manufacturer is being 'cheap' by putting a recovery partition on a computer and NOT giving you original Microsoft CD/DVDs. They take up valuable hard drive real estate, but the content of a recovery partition is maybe more valuable than the space it occupies.
The recovery partition contains all of the data required to rebuild the operating system, maybe a few utilities like personal organizers and calendars which you may have become accustomed to using, manufacturer support programsand, most importantly, the device drivers specific to your system which may or may not be included in an original Microsoft CD/DVD.