For remote access, the RPi sounds like a good idea to me. I've had one on the 'Net for several years, doing things not requiring major CPU power. It's on my UPS, and it's had no reliability problems.
A relatively small dedicated UPS would likely keep your border router and an RPi going for quite a while. An RPi is just a small Debian box, so you could reliably get to it over a VPN. Then, with a little innovative routing, you could look around the net(s) and see what's going on. With a relay board on the RPi's GPIO connector, you could turn things back on, if necessary. No RS-232, new motherboards, or KVM anythings required. Assuming you can write a little Python... No? -- Glenn English
