I want to be able to monitor and ideally limit what SMS2.0 does when I log my work PC into the domain. I know I can log on locally and bypass the domain controller's validation along with all the crap that comes with it but that's not what I'm looking for.

Once a client PC has been 'touched' just once by the corp. login script a number of things are administratively prohibited which is a major PITA on 'engineering' PCs.

I'm also interested in hearing about any tools that might allow me to revert settings back how they were. I'm guessing the MS Group Policy Editor (poledit) is my friend here but it's been years since I last used it.

Does anyone have any suggestions please?

There's not much you can do if you want to bypass group policy and still login to the domain. You may be able to modify the registry to get rid of the limiting keys, and then restart explorer.exe to have them take effect, but they would be an even bigger PITA to do that at every login. Why don't you just work with your IT department and have them build a Group policy just for you that does what you want?