> Mounting tmp as a memory backed fs is great (to which there may be better options than tmpfs), avoids (potentially) spinning up disks covered in rust for minor tasks.

I mount /tmp as a tmpfs for almost exactly this reason. I have an always-on home server/HTPC that runs the OS off of a small (40 GB) SSD, and I don't want to wear down the SSD with writes to /tmp, /var/tmp, /var/run, /var/log, etc. In theory, I don't want any writes at all, unless the thing is actually doing something useful. So I simply threw in 2GB extra RAM and mounted all these temporary/logging directories as tmpfs. Periodically (and on reboot) I zip the logs up and copy them to a backup directory just in case something fails.

Of course this runs the risk of losing temporary data and logs whenever the server goes down, but that's a trade-off I'm willing to make. It's been running just fine for over 2 years now. I'd do the same thing straight away if I ever need to set up some similar system.