Ive seen people spend weeks building up a (redoutable...) cron file after it was lost after a crash and needed to reinstall to OS ( for many sites DONT backup /var in root vg (vg00) eg /var/opt here is another file system as is /var/opt/oracle also and are backed up...)
if you had a copy of you cronfile elsewhere (home directory of that cron user or dedicated directory e.g. /sm/cron) you would always use vi to edit/save followed by a crontab cronfile, you could then compare the file with what is in /var/spool and also rdist it to the other box without using crontab -e, starting the alternate box would be to do just the same with the difference of a first crontab cronfile Im sure it could be automated if needed