Aside from easily creating your own backups, Gateway is just easy for 'scene' 3DS files to be played off-line; pop out microSD, put in computer, copy over .3ds files, put microSD back in GW, play. That takes a minute to a couple of minutes depending on the number of .3ds files you have. Ideal for people who aren't too technical but do have some basic skills and you don't want to come running to you every other day.
You can backup save files by just copying the .sav file on your regular sd and copying it back when you want to go back in time. You can run BigBlueMenu.3ds to install .cia files (incl. DevMenu.cia, BigBlueMenu.cia, FBI.cia, etc.) to your EmuNAND which you can later use in CFW that boots the same EmuNAND.
When A9L matures and CFWs support .3ds files natively (incl. by means of running a CartLoader.cia) that can't be trivially defeated with AP measures, then GW is going to be in trouble.