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1) ok got me there (but SoftLayer does offer VMs too, which presumably have a faster turn up time)

2) SL has hourly physical server rental now (turn up is quoted at 20-30 minutes though)

3) SL has an API for ordering changes, you can setup a script to run on first boot (and probably system images too). What are you thinking for network configuration? Really the only thing I've had to configure on SL is port speed (somewhat API accessible, but not if they need to drop in a 10G card/put you on a 10G rack, etc), and disabling the private ports (API accessible, real time changes).