Ok we are done.

Engineer called in to finish up and we have our test network.

So some boot time stats:

New machines (2.8GHz Core 2 duo, 2GB RAM) take 2 mins to boot screen from cold start and 30 secs from login to workable desktop.

Old machine (3GHz P4, 2GB RAM) take 3mins 20 secs to login from cold boot to login screen and 1min 25 secs from login to workable desktop.