Something that would allow me to keep my machine(s)in recent-release shape without forcing me to show up in person with a CD (and, for one of them, that's a plane trip) on scheduled access, that would be fabulous. Yeah, it'd require some new testing, but, as a motivator to people so they keep their boxes up to date, it goes way better than an EOL notice. Or, at least, that's what our field engs are saying at work.
I did just that from 7.0 -> 7.1 -> 7.2 -> 7.3 on a whole fleet of machines. Big whoop, I know... Aside from that glibc thing, it's actually pretty easy to do across major releases as well. I haven't yet tried a major release upgrade remotely though (ie 8.0 -> 9).
-Chuck