I asked support this last week since the SP2 upgrade docs say to backup NS and the db. Support replied that the db is good enough. I really wish there was some way to export the NS policy settings page somehow even if it was just read only... the SP2 backup documents tell you to note various settings.. but there are a lot there to note that even screenshots are tedious.
For those upgrading to SP2, most or all of my upgrade policies were disabled so I had to go back in and enable them before agents started to update.