Okay android gurus, being a new user to the Android community I have a question. I have an Android tablet that has been rooted. I have not installed any mods or backup solutions such as clockwork mod. My question is how essential is a Nandroid backup? Or is the system partition safe? I don't play with ROMs or load questionable apps.

If you want to be able to take the phone back to the state it's in now then yes Nandroid is useful. There are other times you might need it, but, to me anyway it's not essential.

So am I to assume the original system partition is protected or safe?

System partition is safe and will remain so as long as you don't get infected or load a bad ROM. Since you don't do that you shouldn't have a problem.

Awesome and thanks I was trying to figure that out but everything I was reading was unclear. Don't get infected...hmm so the system partition can be over-written? If it can be over-written by malicious code then I don't feel to safe. Why don't they lock the system image down? Seems like a silly mistake if that is the case.