I’m sorry, I don’t quite understand the problem. What is it between a large outfit and a smaller one? All you really need is just one guy to handle all that infrastructure. Even the backup generators. Of course if you really need the backup generators, you might as well consider going pro.
For instance, from a hobby perspective, I’m a member of SDF Public Access UNIX System for more than a decade. This bbs system had been around since the 80s and is done by a single guy. You can basically plunk in WordPress and not worry about a thing. We even had +200 users on concurrently and are one of the main drivers for NetBSD on concurrent multi-processes. System Admin’s from the era of TECO and DDT. I have much faith in this system/community for not failing and hassle free.
From a professional perspective, of the time I’ve worked on in an ISP, the majority of my time is spent on technical support than actual system maintenance. Granted, the work was more on the ISP side then simply webhosting. But from that experience, I can say work can be all done by just one guy. Backups? I just automated to scripts. Security? The few breeches I had to face due to user’s lack of common sense is migrated thanks to our virtual setup or is contained to a single machine. I came from an era long after TECO and DDT. When Perl was consider great, I can get the job done with ksh, awk, and sed at a much lighter footprint.
