Re: Android 4.4.3 ota
This is incorrect - if your bootloader is already unlocked, you can flash the factory image as long as you remove the -w flag from the flash batch file - this prevents the "wipe" function from occuring. I was able to do this and kept all my data.
Technically, the process you described is not flashing the factory image as is - it is extracting the separate images from the factory image (and skipping the image for the user data), and flashing those.
For all you know, goherd#AC may have tried to flash the factory image as it is, in recovery, without using the flash batch file. Again, since goherd#AC didn't really give any details about what he/she tried, all we can do is speculate.