If one of your complaints about configuration management systems was that they're slow, this is not the answer.

PXE is fast. I'm not sure what your experiences are, but I'd like to hear them. I've never had an issue with speed.

I may have jumped the gun. I was assuming PXE to boot an imaging environment, which copies the system image to local media so you don't have a runtime dependency on the boot infrastructure. In that case, speed-wise, you've not gained anything because you've got two boot cycles and a system copy before your new server is ready.

If you're not copying the system image and simply network booting a remote image, then that doesn't apply, and yes, that can be fast.