Interesting read. I take an interest in backup.
I was not familiar with Windows 10 "File History".
I use the "Backup and Restore (Windows 7)" tool. I've thrown hardware at the problem (SAS/SATA LSI-Broadcome MegaRAID storage controller) and a brand new SAS 12Gbps hard drive. It's unbelievably fast. Until very recently, for the last several years I've run a USB-3.0 external SATA III drive.
I do my important files and libraries followed by a full system image. It's always a full backup, I guess.
But, I just backed up 536GB(total backup size) in 13 minutes! And I have restored completely bare metal in a test from one of these image backups using a Windows 10 OS-recovery USB stick. It works flawlessly. I believed in it so much that deleted my C:\ partitions. Ruined everything first.
I feel like I've obviated the need for incremental backups ever.
I call windows 7 backup at will with the "sdclt" command in the Run prompt.
The "deprecated", "it doesn't do XYZ pi Q t 156#@!~" older backup and restore utility works flawlessly with the hardware.
And I use bit locker encryption of the whole backup SAS drive. SAS is king.