No worries on the delay, Scott. I understand how it can be with the deluge of e-mails.

The behavior that you mentioned, not having the ability to use a command-line switch, has changed in SQL 2008 right? You can use the /connection switch to set the connection from which you would obtain configuration values. (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms141682.aspx)

I work in an environment where we cannot use environment variables and using XML files is not an option either (obtaining the permissions on the network shares for the SQL Server accounts would take FOREVER, if possible!), so we use SQL Server configuration, but with the /connection switch. It's not as robust as your solution, but it works. And I will keep your solution in mind for different environments.

Thanks...Chris