I have a few captured images that I have completely updated from Microsoft before capturing, I manually run a scheduled update on them once a month. Some of the field techs are complaining that there are too many updates after imaging, I brought one back and compared to SCCM. The updates the Windows is asking to install are showing to be in the image (per SCCM). I know SCCM looks at the local meta data to determine whats installed, but what if it's wrong? I am currently sitting at 21 Windows updates. As a side note, there are 44 Office 2010 updates if there is a way to integrate those. We don't use SCCM to push updates to client machines, we have a WSUS server and waiting to move until there is reasonable cause.

Check the image directly using DISM. Also, make sure the image was successfully distributed to the DPs and that the image on the DP is the same image.

There's no way to add Office updates directly to an image however you can add the .msp files to the Update folder of the source files and these will be added automatically by Office setup -- this assumes you didn't put Office in your image itself though. If you've done that, simply rebuild your image -- you are using a build and capture task sequence aren't you? If not, why not? This would seamlessly address both of your issues without any real work on your part.

Checked and the updates are showing to be in the image with DISM (they are even showing in the original captured image). The image is successfully copied to the DPs and same image. I didn't think you could recapture an image or you would run into rearming issues? To capture an image we install from disc and install all static software (Office being one of them) and all updates. Then (in theory) schedule monthly updates to go into the image and once a year install from disc and start over.  

Didn't say recapture, said build and capture. Using this methodology, you automate building your images from a clean OS install (using a task sequence in exactly the same way that you deploy the image). In this way, if you need to update the image, you simply change your TS (if necessary), re-run it and walk-away.

As for activation re-arming, if you are using Enterprise media, there is no limit. If you are using Pro media, then there is a limit of 3 activations/syspreps. In the case of a build and capture, this is meaningless though because as mentioned, it's a clean install every time.