I agree that cloud computing might ease the time constraints but for some companies, it's not always an issue of purchasing and installing hardware or even setting up the VM to support that particular instance of SQL Server. The real issues begin to kick in when they start implementing their security models which will dictate what roles your or your group will have access to. Some companies my put an outright ban on allowing sysadmin roles for anyone but their dedicated dba team members. Then we have company specific rules and regulations that need to be thought through. So, even though setting up a virtual machine with SQL Server on it should be fairly straight forward, the rest of the process isn't.

Our last server upgrade went fairly smooth with some exceptions. But from the time we requested the upgrade to SQL Server 2012 to the actual time we had it up and ready for our use, it was at best two months. Thats in a VM shop too. Why so long? The timeing of the event was just all wrong. Our company is going through a major upgrade to one of it's claim systems and people resources are virtually non-existent. Given that and all of the discussions we had to get it set up, the wait was justifiable in the companies eyes. Afterall, we did have an existing server that was working just fine and we really weren't in any rush to get a new server.

So, time delays may be something we may all just need to live with, depending on where you work, their policies, work loads, and the visibility of your server.