I set up a server in Dubai from scratch whilst I was in London and it was a nightmare.
No IT out there just office monkeys that get confused between a banana and a keyboard lol.

I can't imagine doing this again and Think your right there for the usb idea

Possibly upload a basic OS (automatically, log in, launch casper imaging, with jss prefs set) to a ftp for the "wrench turners" to restore through disk utility. That is if they can handle that :(