Also as a side note geological/governmental diversity would not hurt. Find the most bitcoin friendly places in the world and distribute the hardware accordingly. This prevents "Doomsday" scenarios (government interference/geological disaster) from completely erasing the business. Again, another issue I have not heard much about.
Anyhow that my .02 BTC

hope it spawns some meaningful discussion

Yes, the DR/failover issue has only been discussed briefly before and probably could be explored further; not that AM are making strategic business planning decisions based on the combined wisdom of this august forum.
As it happens I work in a large data/communications centre owned by a big telco in a geologically and politically stable area a long way from China. I'm sure we could squeeze a couple of thousand blades in and no one would mind.
