Hi Chuck,
So, I agree with you all the way up to FIPS. Unfortunately, the tracing that we've done on the FIPS 140-2 requirement through various ties to policy and FISMA *appears* to be unavailable except by the President of the US, by named position. Now, it's possible that this tracing is incorrect but I have yet to find anyone that could find another *documented* interpretation that overrides the Congressional mandate as handed down to NIST and inherited through the 800-53 and CNSS 1253.
That said, FIPS only applies for the "protection of sensitive information". If you don't have any sensitive information (i.e. 100% test and eval environment with independent credentials that have no access to any other system) then fire away.
Also, this mandate only applies to organizations directly under the Executive and Legislative branches of Government. The Judicial branch can do what it likes.
Sorry for the slight rant, this is one of those particular items that just drives me nuts in terms of laws (not policies) that people like to try and ignore when it gets inconvenient.
In terms of packages, I completely agree with Charlie that it's really simple to just grab all of the packages through various means so the RHN is really just making legitimate use more difficult for systems like yours and rapid CI testing systems. We specifically do not use one of the many ways of circumventing the process so that we don't run afoul of any licensing rules or restrictions.
Trevor