I came up with a lot of fanon for this, so TL;DR ahead. I should probably note that I think Fraction meant Tony's brain deletion as just a straight up dick move and display of hubris. And Pepper was in a very, very bad emotional place. When you're dealing with something like that, calm logic goes right out the window. I don't blame her for thinking the way she did. Anyway!
One of the things writers tend to forget about when it comes to Tony is that he has a long history of depression, and canonical suicide attempts. I really don't think Tony has any concept of his own self-worth—he's always relied on other people for that. So when you put him in a situation where he's lost most of his oldest touchstones (Thor, Happy, Jan, Steve), it makes perfect sense to me that he'd just hand the reins over. He's doing what he'd always done, trusting other people to tell him whether or not he has anything left to give, because he knows he can't make that decision himself.
From Tony's perspective at that point, he was only worth keeping alive in that he could be useful. So he told them everything, laid the cards on the table, and essentially left it up to Thor et al to decide if his usefulness balanced out how much trouble he is. It seems like an asshole move, but... Well. When you're down that low, balancing the ledger of your life in pluses and minuses and the minuses are stacking up... It's really, really hard to understand that you're the only one thinking about it that way. And after a while, those minuses start looking pretty damned big next to the pluses.
For someone like Tony, going out the way he'd arranged must have been terrifying. To lose everything, bit by bit—all your knowledge, all your memories, all your guilt and triumphs... Tony would hate to lose that, because it would feel like letting himself off the hook. He doesn't seem to have much fear of actually dying, but I really can't think of a more frightening way to go. So he must have had a reason that was bigger than him.
Going straight by canon, it's because he thought he would be needed. That meant that he had to take as many opportunities as he could to get himself into Thor & Bucky's hands, no matter the cost to himself. If he just jumped into a volcano, whatever he thought they might need him for would be toast. He couldn't possibly have planned for the final showdown with Osborn to turn out the way it did. There were too many variables. That was just a stroke of luck. But throwing it all to the wind and just trying to get through alive in whatever way possible? That's workable.
As far as the back-up... IDK. If you work with computers, you tend to keep a backup of every major change you make if it's possible, or at least the past few. Sensitive files, like the database, would be backed up separately in a single secure location. I suspect Fraction just didn't think it through. Maybe Tony went back that far because it would keep the other dangerous part of Tony's brain safe: Extremis. After all, if they screw up and Osborn wins, Extremis would be one hell of a tempting target. Tony wouldn't want to take chances, especially since the odds of him making it out alive weren't good. Why risk that sort of tech falling into Osborn's hands for the teeny, selfish chance that Tony would survive to play with it? But that's all conjecture for what was, in essence, narrative convenience. If Tony remembered, the fallout from Civil War would have gone on and on and on, with people demanding answers and canon having been tied into such a knot that it would be impossible to explain it all. Marvel wanted a clean break to start the Heroic Age, and this was the way the decided to do it.
TL;DR Essentially, Tony was so low that he couldn't make the choices himself. It wasn't an actual suicide attempt, but he left the option of taking himself off the game board open. He gave Thor and Bucky the choice it because they were the ones who would know if they needed him—if it was worth keeping him. Tony gave them the cost/benefit analysis and left them to it, because he didn't have any real choices otherwise. Asshole move, yes, but pretty understandable from where Tony was standing.
no subject
One of the things writers tend to forget about when it comes to Tony is that he has a long history of depression, and canonical suicide attempts. I really don't think Tony has any concept of his own self-worth—he's always relied on other people for that. So when you put him in a situation where he's lost most of his oldest touchstones (Thor, Happy, Jan, Steve), it makes perfect sense to me that he'd just hand the reins over. He's doing what he'd always done, trusting other people to tell him whether or not he has anything left to give, because he knows he can't make that decision himself.
From Tony's perspective at that point, he was only worth keeping alive in that he could be useful. So he told them everything, laid the cards on the table, and essentially left it up to Thor et al to decide if his usefulness balanced out how much trouble he is. It seems like an asshole move, but... Well. When you're down that low, balancing the ledger of your life in pluses and minuses and the minuses are stacking up... It's really, really hard to understand that you're the only one thinking about it that way. And after a while, those minuses start looking pretty damned big next to the pluses.
For someone like Tony, going out the way he'd arranged must have been terrifying. To lose everything, bit by bit—all your knowledge, all your memories, all your guilt and triumphs... Tony would hate to lose that, because it would feel like letting himself off the hook. He doesn't seem to have much fear of actually dying, but I really can't think of a more frightening way to go. So he must have had a reason that was bigger than him.
Going straight by canon, it's because he thought he would be needed. That meant that he had to take as many opportunities as he could to get himself into Thor & Bucky's hands, no matter the cost to himself. If he just jumped into a volcano, whatever he thought they might need him for would be toast. He couldn't possibly have planned for the final showdown with Osborn to turn out the way it did. There were too many variables. That was just a stroke of luck. But throwing it all to the wind and just trying to get through alive in whatever way possible? That's workable.
As far as the back-up... IDK. If you work with computers, you tend to keep a backup of every major change you make if it's possible, or at least the past few. Sensitive files, like the database, would be backed up separately in a single secure location. I suspect Fraction just didn't think it through. Maybe Tony went back that far because it would keep the other dangerous part of Tony's brain safe: Extremis. After all, if they screw up and Osborn wins, Extremis would be one hell of a tempting target. Tony wouldn't want to take chances, especially since the odds of him making it out alive weren't good. Why risk that sort of tech falling into Osborn's hands for the teeny, selfish chance that Tony would survive to play with it? But that's all conjecture for what was, in essence, narrative convenience. If Tony remembered, the fallout from Civil War would have gone on and on and on, with people demanding answers and canon having been tied into such a knot that it would be impossible to explain it all. Marvel wanted a clean break to start the Heroic Age, and this was the way the decided to do it.
TL;DR Essentially, Tony was so low that he couldn't make the choices himself. It wasn't an actual suicide attempt, but he left the option of taking himself off the game board open. He gave Thor and Bucky the choice it because they were the ones who would know if they needed him—if it was worth keeping him. Tony gave them the cost/benefit analysis and left them to it, because he didn't have any real choices otherwise. Asshole move, yes, but pretty understandable from where Tony was standing.