Re-evlauting OSX Server Role

Advice and suggestions re follwoing would apreciated.
Context
3 offices connected by VPN handled by dsl routers
Main office 6 macs 6 main users.
1 remote admin office
1 remote branch office
OSX Server current Panther, Tiger available.
Redhat Serving Filemaker
Fedora DNS server
ARD across the board
Background
Have been running OSX Server serving mail, web site (connected to Filemaker) and user home directories centrally managed on the server.
Concept was anyone can log in at any machine and work.
Experience has been that nobody does. Also that serving home directory up to remote office has been slow and the centralised management never quite fulfilled the promise eg printers still have issues with drivers being on server and client. People like to customise their workspaces etc etc.
We are about to move up to Filemaker 8 Server and Tiger Server. (2 G4 800s available).
We had a server failure (inexplicable disc full and refilling).
Emergency response was to move mail off to Fedora and set up local user accounts on the machines to keep people working while we resolved the server issue.
Question.
My inclination is to give up on LDAP Home directories and leave everyone with their local user accounts.
Centralise management through ARD and ssh.
Leave the mail on Fedora and use webmin to administer it,
Leave the 2 G4 *00s with on OSX Svr on each, one for Filemaker and one for the web.
One down side is inability to build a machine from an image and have all users available but I’m wondering what else beyond that am I missing.
Any guidance on which way to go would be appreciated. Back to mail, web and users on one server or local users and single function serve.
Regards
Eric

Hi David
Thanks for responding. As a brief OFF topic I was showed a Unix friend your name in the list yesterday whose login in our systems is davidh ! He said he's not moonlighting
Well, that's several kettles of fish
If you have a moment we could feast !
I would never have recommended using network home
directories in the situation you describe, and that
feature is not intended for regular use remotely, not
at all. Clients are expected to be on the same
network. I'm certain that over VPN it would be an
atrociously slow if the added latency didn't cause
alot of failed logins.
We have done ok on that front but speed has been problematic. Hence I was already thinking of a local account and rsyncing back to the server.
My main aim is to reduce time I have to spend managing the technology and the attractions were:
1. Single drive to back up.
2. Single consitent interface for people (which they hate !)
3. Login anywhere for anyone
4. Being able to do instals updates etc by picking up their machine (mac minis) mounting as a target drive. Overwriting with an updated image using netrestore (eg updating panther to tiger)
5. Single place to backup
We had been using ASIP and Remote Access/Timbuktu so I didn't have much idea of what Remote Desktop could do.
Is there a most efficient way to manage the machines with local users accounts ?
As for the issue of drive(s) filling up, that one
issue alone merits its own topic
I suspect in the end one user didn't ever empty her mail trash. I wasn't monitoring and the disc filled. Next incoming mail put it into a flat spin. Mounted in target disc mode removed a bunch of stuff. Rebooted but couldn't log in. Discovered afp had switched off. Turned it back on, coould log in and all the user directories served up again ok. Sort of could have recovered better than I feared.
, but separating
services between different servers (when that's an
option) in generally a good idea.
I'm leaning that way confining OSX to web and filemaker. Leaving mail where it is now which is noticeably faster because its not running an a g4 with a 10gig drive and 800mg of ram.
You can use Carbon Copy Cloner to make a base image
of the client machines for use with a bootable
Firewire drive, or use the server tools to setup
NetBoot/NetInstall. Bombich's NetRestore Helper is
also an excellent alternative way of setting up and
managing the images.
Note that if you have or get any Intel Macs, you'll
want to run Tiger server if intending to
NetBoot/NetInstall those client Macs.
This is ok now.
Have users use the OS X server as a central
file-server, that will probably be a good start. Then
implement backup for the server if you haven't
already.
The challenges I'm seeing at the moment are:
1. Setting up print settings on each machine
2. Configuring each mail app for each.
3. Creating a backup method that has to log in to each users machine to backup stuff.
4. Keeping the users in the server directories when they save so I don't wipe out stuff if I upgrade.
5. Getting Remote Desktop's install package option to work with OS upgrades form PAnther to Tiger and so on into the future.
Its that repetitive stuff I have to either remotely control there machine to do or sit at it to do that's daunting.
eg. I couldn't find anywhere a way to use the Terminal function in Remote Desktop to set their mail clients to the new mail server address. Is there a mac terminal apps reference.
Any thoughts on best management of these sorts of things
Regards
Eric

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The only problem is that I'm not sure how that would behave once the client MBP's are taken off site and connect to the network over a VPN or something of that sort.
I figure since we have purchased the Server App and it contains the Contacts Service, I should try and get it to work that way (through that specific service on the server app).
I would really prefer to not have to install yet another piece of software just to do something that should already work (or have the ability to be configured to work). None of us here are "Power Users", and we are all learning as we go and I got the role of the "IT Guy" when it comes to setting everything up. I'm dealing with lifetime Windows users here, and I feel there is a need to keep everything literally as easy as possible to use.
I will keep your solution in the front of my mind though, as it sounds like that may work. I am not exactly 100% familiar with the OSX Server or the Mac OS yet, and I'm not positive where you would add the users (I couldn't just sit down and do what you suggested, i unfortunately would need a step by step solution so I don't fuss up our entire system).
If you feel like giving a step by step, that would be awesome just for future reference or for anyone else having similar problems. If not, I don't blame you at all.
Thanks for your reply, and if I find a clear-cut solution I will post it here!
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