Peter - thanks for the suggestion, the Execute File command worked like a charm! As a bonus, I was able to use the /log switch from your post to help me verify that my distributed patch architecture is working as designed as well (downloading from the local preferred server).
Hopefully at some point the Patch System task will get fixed (maybe SP2) as it is a little more user friendly, but for now this gets the job done.
Thanks again for your help.
-Dave