Hi @robb, thanks for sharing the story.
Sounds really A LOT familiar (at least, in the first phases, since we have installed the first environment just some weeks ago) and we plan to do everything you mentioned. This is a long and slow process (also, in Italy we are the country of bureucracy, so this doesn't help) but we plan to do exactly what you explained.
Maybe I'm too negative and integrating Moodle/Chamilo is really a breeze, but at the moment I don't see any space/need for it in our local implementation. Our priority right now is to provide a stable and "managed" environment also to non-technical people, and the next step would be to integrate Multimedia Interactive Boards inside our setup; these things are really asked for inside schools we have visited presenting the project.
I also second and agree on the potential of FOSS within Educational environments, that's exactly why we started the project in the first place 