When I install a new OS I typically just use the guided installer which makes the partitions automatically. This is usually the default too. I would actually have to go out of my way to set it up so that the drive is a single partition then on top of that create a USB drive that I'd need to always have on hand which sounds like a tremendous PITA with a laptop.

If it it works for you great but that is a LOT of extra work to regain less than 1% of the storage on a drive.