We have been testing this out as well. We tried using the stsadm.exe command and backed up the web site and then restored it on a different computer running SharePoint. The site came up and we where able to get to the stored documents.
So my question is what do the Config database and content database do? We where thinking meta data was stored there. We are new to SharePoint and need directions as well for back up and restores. We did notice that the config and content databases will not restore on a different database because, we are guessing, different server names.
Thanks.