hard reset question about apps on sd card topic

my phone is runnign sluggish,. its due a hard reset, i have a lot of apps stored on thesd card, but i seem to recall last time i hard reset the phone i had to reinstall the apps from the play store...
is this required? or can i just copy the app shortcut back from the sd card to the phone?
if i do need to reinstall then i move the data over to the sd card again am i not just doubling up files on the sd card?
its stock rom, so i cant use all those titanium backup apps and stuff as far as i know..

please advise