Rebooting Windows boxes is a way of life, but rebooting by default can you get you nowhere fast when running Unix ...

Paul Venezia writes an article explaining why rebooting a unix system should be the last action, unlike with windows systems its usually the first.
To save future heartache one should find the cause of the problem without rebooting or face unacceptable downtime due to some rookie deleting /boot.

you can read more on this interesting article at http://www.infoworld.com/t/unix/when-in-doubt-reboot-not-unix-boxes-061