I think that its hard to just pitch a idea to somebody else...its all left to their imagination. Better to have already a prototype or something and have people play with that. The feedback will be much more valuable, then just shooting out some draft idea over a beer...you know what I mean!?
I make it short:
1. Of course
2. You write a script. Or simply use something out of the Systems Management Product Family (awesome btw)
3. WMI or Powershell should do the job.
You rarely write custom code when scripting....most use cases a covered by a huge library MS offers. The rest is available through google :)
We have run large Windows Server Farms at my past company (SaaS Business) and maybe 3-4 Linux Servers...the ones causing the most trouble where the Linux ones. One reason: Every dummy can administrate a Windows machine....not so a Linux machine! That fact forced the Ops team to get rid of the Linux machines as quick as the could.