This is definitely the ideal and is actually very close to how we do it on nwsource.com. Our editorial staff works on production and we rsynch uploaded files around. The big problem with moving nodes around is primary keys - it is very very difficult to guarantee that any nid will be available from one environment to another. And then of course if they are different, you have to worry about the foreign keys out to roles, taxonomy, etc etc etc. I still don't know the best way to handle that. I have lots of ideas but they all have problems (some more political than technical.) Hopefully after I release the module for real (next week if we're lucky!) I will be getting a group together to discuss these issues and come up with a plan of action. Contact me if you're interested!