ok guys, been on the phone with apple for 47 minutes, all options to re download os x lion are showing status as 'installed' and are ghosted out, they got me to press the option key and right click on the lion purchase but it only shows up 2 options, 'copy link' or 'open link'. I was assured that it was ok to download lion installation file again but they don't know how to allow it.
they explained that a recovery partition is created in the event of software failure but couldn't answer me when I asked this question... in the event of complete hard drive failure, how in the name of almighty mac do I reinstall lion when there is no installation file.
I realise that a bootable usb backup could have been made 'before' installing lion but no warning is given that the installation file would be deleted and no option given to make such a backup was given during or before installation.
I think apple need to address this issue, after all if lion had been released on disc then I'd still have that in my possession and rightly so as I would have paid for it and could format or replace my hard drive as and when I like. but with this, I paid for an os installation file and apple physically took it from me by deleting it.
I have emailed the mac app store team to see if they can suggest a way of downloading it again.