Making advanced settings changes to a running VM
If you use a method like that in the Powershell script I posted the changes can be made to a running VM. This is great because that dialog box is disabled in Virtual Center when the vm is up.
The settings do not take effect until the VM is power cycled (not just restarted in the OS). This is not that big of a deal on clusters with VMotion licensed because a VMotion starts a new instance of the VM on the destination host. I have validated that security settings like isolation.tools.connectable.disable work immediately after the VMotion, but I have not checked all settings.
As always, be careful with the advanced settings and be prepared with a backout plan before doing this on a large scale (i.e. before ESX host patching).
Let me know if you run into any settings that do not apply after a VMotion.