Have you looked into configuring some of these settings by group policy? The Office Resource Kit has tools for creating Group Policies which control Office settings. You can read more about it in KB 924617. Another possibility would be to customize the installer to set certain settings up. You can read about that in this TechNet article.
The Office Customization Tool (OCT)
helps you configure how Microsoft
Office Outlook 2007 is installed on
users' computers. This tool enables
you to include custom settings and
Outlook profile configurations in a
Setup customization file that is
applied when Office Outlook 2007 is
installed from a network installation
point.
Customizing Outlook by using the
Office Customization Tool
You can use the OCT to customize the
following aspects of your installation
of a network installation point for
Office Outlook 2007:
Specify installation states for
Outlook features
Specify Outlook user settings
Customize profiles and (optionally)
export profile settings to a PRF file
Configure Send/Receive settings for
Microsoft Exchange accounts
After your initial installation, you
also use the OCT to modify and deploy
updates to customizations.
Most Microsoft products, and a lot of third party products, can be set up to do administrative or customized installs so that settings are applied ahead of time. The Internet Explorer Administration Kit can customize all of your IE settings, for example, and while not officially supported, there are ways to customize a Firefox install as well. Try googling "product name + custom install" or "... + administrative install"