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.
The Linux and Windows kernels are equally stable. The only thing that introduces instability is poorly written drivers or software. Neither are Microsoft's fault. Linux is great for single-purpose machines like miners and servers, but it's far from the "stable" fantasy that people profess. They have poorly written drivers and software too. In fact their driver support is usually far behind what's available for Windows. If you like to tinker, then you can expect instability and require reboots. If you set it and forget it... then Windows is equally as stable.