I've built countless mobile production and service test jigs. Most of them that require gear such as this (i.e. high end/high precision) will inevitably have a PC based control and logging system on the trolley as well. So the boot time of the PC and program usually dominates.
Not an expert, have just seen what others have built. Those I've seen has used laptops to get around the rebooting and setup problem. Though I am aware that a laptop will not cut it in every situation (if you absolutely need PCI cards etc.), and the UPS idea may also have merit.
That's what hand held meters are for. Or a bench meter without such high end system functionality that is instant-on.
And that's the kicker. This a complex system multimeter with oodles of power and functionality, it is not designed for the push-on and take a simple measurement crowd.
If any buys it for that and them proceeds to complain about the boot up time, then they are being rather silly.
Several years ago, while I was still active in my particular field, a colleague once asked an Agilent rep if the general kind of activity we engaged in was important to Agilent from a business perspective. The answer we got at the time was a strong affirmative.
As alm mentioned, then the 34461A is positioned to be the successor to the venerable 34401A, which I used regularly back then. I would expect it to be able to perform all the duties of the 34401A if this is so, and some of the basic needs we had to a 'field' DMM were:
*) Mains powered, with no batteries to run out. We frequently ran our DMMs for half a day or more at a time, sometimes with no say in the matter!
*) One man portable, relatively quickly if possible. We'd have hauled 19" rack gear around if that is what it took, but the smaller size of the 34401A was great.
*) Easy to stack physically, both vertically and horizontally.
*) High visibility display. In this regard I personally much prefer the VFD displays to, say, the 7 segment LCD display on my Fluke 189 (Mk I).
*) High relative accuracy, 5 digits didn't always cut it. Whenever possible our test/monitor points were designed such that absolute accuracy wasn't needed. By this I mean we only needed to see whether we could hit a null through adjustment, or quickly be able to check if a test voltage drifted and if so, gauge the speed and direction of drift.
[1] My colleagues and I are acutely aware of the problems involved in obtaining measurements with an absolute accuracy in the uV range, so we mostly didn't even try.
*) Remote control and data acquisition was occasionally useful.
While we obviously didn't need all of these points fulfilled simultaneously, we did need them all at one point or another. My colleagues still do, as far as I know.
Additionally, our electronics labs mostly have a support function, they are not the center of activities. By this I mean that the test gear within are tools, which we fetch at need. Sometimes we are able to bring a piece of electronics there to troubleshoot, or we may develop a custom solution to a particular problem, though either didn't happen too often.
I'm terribly sorry if this bothers you but yes, my colleagues absolutely use the 34401A DMMs and their likes as portable devices to be used in the 'field'. They do not stay within the confines of the comfy laboratory.
Care to take a guess at what we do? By your words we cannot
possibly have a valid reason to use these DMMs outside the confines of a proper lab, so clearly what we do is utterly pointless.
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[1] "
Oooohhh, the 34461A has drift mode! Aww chucks... Takes forever to boot, so no more quickly running around, locating the source of drift... 
"
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