Thanks Beltz, great tips. I've thought about the electrical, water, sewage stuff, as well. As in, possibly digging the well early and just putting a local hose on it... the idea being to eventually run piping to the house once we began construction. This way, we could take one bite out of the house project in advance, and have water available on the lot for a small garden, etc (we currently live about 15 minutes from the lot). The complication is how to provide electricity to the pump... I wouldn't want to run electric cables through a spot that we might want to build on, etc.
And could that same concept be applied to sewage, as well... we've been perked for a PuraFlo system... if we could get a bulk of the sewage work done in advance while still providing adequate flexibility in terms of house design/location, that'd be one less thing to worry about in the overall project.
Anyway, consider these as somewhat "rhetorical" thoughts. Comments and advice are certainly welcome, but at the same time, I plan on doing a lot of reading and info gathering on my own, etc. Generally don't want to make any big monetary commitments until I've analyzed many different angles.