Well, you can easily backup the PS3 saves to the cloud, so no problems there.
Not if your ps3 has lost its ability to go online you can't, or in my case can't download them again ;-) .
Not to digress further but I can only hope that my ps3 is fixed before my ps+ subscription runs out and before I have to resubscribe just so I can safe keep my Dark Souls save files. I'm essentially paying Sony for cloud storage because From doesn't allow me to copy those save files to a USB stick. And again, a full backup doesn't work either for those saves, and if it did, it would become useless if the repairs to your machine include changing the motherboard. I admit my situation might be uncommon, but I'm still finding it all unnecessarily complicated and frustrating to be honest, especially if an old fashioned memory card that Sony helped make mainstream in the past would have done the trick easily.
As for Brawl and the lens issue: not sure why Nintendo saw the need to tell people to send in their Wii's for lens replacements, upon which they sent us refurbished machines even, when a lens cleaner would have done the trick, but it wouldn't surprise me at this point. Hope the Smash 4 troubles won't lead to such drastic measures, but it probably won't.