We do something a bit different. Perhaps its a little more dangerous, depending on how you look at it. but we only use our Dev server to thoroughly test out new versions of the Casper Suite. Even a minor point release update like 8.72 to 8.73, for example. Once we determine its good to go, then with a good backup and roll back plan in place, we schedule the upgrade.
On our production system we have a number of test policies and configurations we build that are only scoped (very carefully) to the appropriate test Macs. We then move onto a broader test environment utilizing live in use Macs of IT users who are part of our testing/pilot group. Form there, once everything is good, we schedule to move the test policy into production. In this way, the only items we typically need to change is the Scope, and the Category its saved to in the JSS, since everything else in the policy would be the same. It ensures that whatever we had working great in testing is used for the live production policy.
