Not that I do any kernel hacking, but why would this lead to a reinstall? You do know you can use grub to select a kernel at boot time (and so always have access to a working kernel), right?
When I use to do weird things, I just had a set of boot floppies (then later, a boot cd) with a console only repair set-up (vim, mc, rpm, chroot, etc.). If I did something to a system file, I backed it up first. Then if I couldn't boot, it was just a matter of using the rescue CD to mount the filesystem and swap the files back (or whatever). That'd also allow you to resolve any "mystery" there might be about how you wrecked the system -- which if you reinstall, all such evidence is gone.