Software :: Using Rsync For Copying Multiple Partitions?

Regularly I find myself cloning a machine using rsync. I find it understandable, reliable and fast, faster than dd, and I don't have to worry about different partition sizes etc. However, usually I partition my hard disk in a number of partitions:

Code:
/
/home
/usr
/var

When I start with a new, empty machine, I start up with a USB stick or live CD, and my new, empty hard disk becomes /dev/sdb. After creating the 4 partitions I have /dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2... etc. My root directory is on the disk I used for booting, usually /dev/sda. So, in order to access my newly created partitions, I mount them on the /mnt/directory of my root:

Code:
mounted now later
/mnt/sdb1 /
/mnt/sdb2 /home
/mnt/sdb3 /usr
/mnt/sdb4 /var

In other words, I mount now /dev/sdb1 on /mnt/sdb1, while after copying /dev/sdb1 will become my root directory, /dev/sdb2 become my /home directory, etc. When I start the resync process to copy the image from a remote machine, I have to copy all 4 partitions separately. First the root directory, excluding /home, /usr, /var, then /home, then /usr, /var, like this:

Code:
action 1:
rsync --exclude='/home' --exclude='/var' --exclude='/usr' my.remote.machine:/ /dev/sdb1/

action 2:
rsync my.remote.machine:/home /dev/sdb2/

action 3:
rsync my.remote.machine:/usr /dev/sdb3/

action 4:
rsync my.remote.machine:/var /dev/sdb4/

That is a lot of typing and waiting. Sometimes I have a different partition scheme so it is not really feasible to write a script to use always. Now the Question: is there a smarter way of mounting the newly formatted disk (/dev/sdb1, /dev/sdb2... etc) in my root tree so I can perform the rsync copy in just one time, without all the excludes, but assuring that the correct source partitions end up on the correct destination partitions?