Partitioning with gpart or old style slices?

[perryh at pluto.rain.com]

Robert Simmons <rsimmons0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> > How do I wipe the whole thing in one go so that I can start
> > afresh?
> >
> > gpart destroy ad4 ??
>
> Yes, but first you must delete all of the slices/partitions.
> Think of it this way: you must go backwards down the path you
> just came with a delete for each add, then a destroy for each
> create.

So there is no way to just say "clean up this whole disk" in a
single operation?  That seems a considerable step backwards,
given that the old tools have "fdisk -i" and "bsdlabel -w".