IP Helper Cleanup?

Hi hiya;

I just started at this small company (100+) and my networking skills are rusty. We have three local sites, one of which is our data center, and one remote site on the opposite coast all in the same domain. There is a domain controller at every site running dhcp and dns. The Cisco routers at each site have ip helper addresses of the PDC and BDC in the data center.

Here's what I see:

1. Clients at every site are hit and miss whether they get a DHCP lease from their local subnet server or jump over to the data center via the routers. Lovely little lease renewal issues.
2. DNS requests go the same way.
3. Browser service is hosed obviously. Local servers refuse to become master browsers and a packet capture shows a local client tripping all the way over to the far coast for a browser list but it still doesn't get a list. XP clients keep thinking they're the master browser.
4. Event logs show random but often entries of services complaining that a peer server can't be reached even though the server complained about is up and running. Several days later, everything is fine with no action taken.

Here's what I've done:

1. Forced the data center PDC to be the master browser. Stunning progress, I know.

Here's what I'm scared to do:

1. Tune the ip helper command to deny everything except DHCP requests and rely on the data center DHCP servers and maybe a backup to supply the DNS. You would be too with this place.

Here's what I need help with at a bare minimum:

1. Should I tune the ip helper command to deny all but DHCP?
2. Should I kill the local DHCP/DNS servers? They have issues themselves.
3. Should I kill the ip helper command instead and keep the local servers?
4. Should I setup LMHOSTS files on the servers and force them to be master browsers if I disable NETBios traffic across routers?
5. What's the cheapest way get drunk quickly to blunt the pain?

Thanks for any assistance in advance.