Hi Ed my name is Ed too
I think there is a lot of overkill on this. I've been involved with IT since 1986 and one thing I know of a fact is that hacking takes time and money. NO one is going to spend more time and money then it would take to mine bitcoin just to grab a few mBTC's. If your wallet is off-line don't worry about it. All this "booting" and other nonsense is just not necessary. Just place your wallet in an external HD and disconnect whenever you are not using it. Then let time take care of security. Meaning that this is open source, better security options are and will be developed as bitcoin matures. Just make sure you have a good password.
This is sound advice. If you're Mt. Gox, then you should be paranoid about being hacked. But Joe Blow? Unlikely you'll be a target.
If you're really paranoid however, check out the below story... "the walls have ears" as the Persian saying goes.
TT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/19/acoustic_cryptanalysis/ Code-busters lift RSA keys simply by listening to the noises a computer makes