So of your list there, we still have to handle glib and pkg-config. As for binaries, there currently isn't really a way to manage them. Right now, the setup uses binaries from the MinGW and MSYS installers, then everything else is checked into SVN 'sources' and built from source. In order to make this setup reproduceable, it needs to be simple.
I think August got pkg-config going, was that a binary?
yeah, the only way to go is with binaries due to a circular dependency with glib and pkg-config.