Preloading for personal use

Posting here as I believe my question is mostly associated with enterprise deployment.

I'd like to preconfigure iPads that will be given away. This includes loading free apps (all in the app store), setting wallpaper/lockscreen, a couple webclips, loading a couple PDFs (into iBooks, which must be loaded), and loading a video. These units will then be someone elses to use as they please.

I thought perhaps the new Apple Configurator application was perfect for this, but it appears that the free applications will be associated with the user id on the loading mac, and thus they will not be able to be updated, not can they be redownloaded wirelessly (what does this mean, one needs to delete, and then add again with the users Apple id?). See the information on this from Apple at the bottom.

If these were PC's it would be as simple as creating a hard drive image and burning it to each machine.

I don't want to manage these units, I just want some content placed on them prior to being given to the end user, with them never to come back again!

Also, I'd like to avoid having to touch each unit and do this manually - it needs to be somewhat automated, able to do multiple iPads at a time - there will be quite a few.

What am I missing? I'm not finding any information that addresses what I'm trying to do, but have to believe it's been done.

Important: Apps installed using Apple Configurator are tied to the device they were

installed on, not to a specific Apple ID. To update apps deployed using Apple Configurator,

you must reconnect to the same Mac from which the apps were installed. Additionally,

you can’t redownload these apps via iTunes in the Cloud. Therefore, it’s recommended

that Apple Configurator be used to install App Store apps on supervised or assigned

devices only.