I was about to write up a whole "set your Finder settings on a test machine and convert your plist keys to a profile using a custom payload..." when low and behold... in 9.98 (and possibly earlier...someone would have to confirm when) there is a Finder payload you can set for Simple Finder:

Yes but if you set finder to simple, it renders the commands tab unusable. So if you want a simple finder but also want to expose the shutdown and restart, you can't.

I think you'll find that Simple Finder was intended to be a Kiosk Mode, explaining why Shutdown and Restart are made unavailable.

So one alternative that I put in a few years ago when there was a payload bug around the show "shut down/sleep/restart" commands was to set self service policies as ongoing for shut down and reboot. Might try that.

Thanks easyedc
I thought of that too, but we are locking these Mac's so tight that they won't have Self Service available. It's pretty much Kiosk mode, with a few extras.

So in situations like that, maybe leverage an apple script or automator action published as a .app that anyone can run? We have issues with DNS cleanup on our laptops and due to security non-admins can't remotely fix themselves. I write a little apple script action and saved as a .app anyone can run.

Thanks again - I will investigate that route.