While I can respect your opinion as to why you don't want to use Win 10, what does overhead in the OS have to do with mining performance? I can tell you from experience that it has no effect. Many of your better tools are on Windows, and remote management is a simple checkbox in the System control panel... takes 30 seconds to enable RDP.
Afterburner definitely blows away the available LINUX tools for overclock and fan management - but LINUX is a ton more stable than Windows.
I've yet to have a windows-based mining machine go A month (more commonly a couple weeks or less) without a hang or a reboot, my LINUX machines routinely go for months if I don't lose power or have to move them.
I don't DO remote management so can't speak to either side of the question there.