This works to a degree but misses all the plugins, thus currently I'm using rsync - basically pasting a giant blob that turns 'vim' into an alias that first rsyncs and then runs 'vim -u'.
The point is that I have to remember pasting that blob, sometimes the blob fails, etc.
I'll be the first to admit that this is pretty much a Maserati-Problem. Still, keeps crossing my mind...
I think it's an interesting problem, indeed. I've been blessed enough to only have a few machines (<10) under my current care, and I've used the github variant mentioned above on all of them.
How many plugins are you using? Maybe you could make a vimrc.portable that contains the basic stuff that you need, but isn't the complete setup. I know I don't need all the 40-ish plugins I have in my full setup when I'm just doing sysadmin stuff.
I just tried it with http://dump.ninjaloot.se/hn.vim, and it seems to work.