Thanks for the reply hawz.
While deploying Reader is not technically difficult, it requires orchestrating the regression testing with several others to really put it through its paces, a 2-3 week process. (Heck - for what its worth - If it weren't for some of our add-ins, we'd likely already be on XI.) For now, in our environment, the path of least resistance is to push the registry key via GPO or login script.