Setting up perfect server config for codeigniter

[eluser]megamonk[/eluser]
here are few examples of problems i usually encounter:

no mod_rewrite
php version below 5.3 ($_request variable includes cookies where ci_session var is stored)
$_post doesnt work or disabled
having problem figuring out correct 'uri protocol' sometimes i tried all 5 options already but still doesnt work only to find out i need to put "?" after index file then try the 5 options again.
no compression support

and many more....

all in all my goal is to know what would be the perfect server config for it and how to set it up that the only thing i have to worry about would be changing the base url in the config file and the database connection and thats it. figuring out how to configure a site everytime i migrate to production then adjusting code accordingly to make it work in the production server simply waste time. i develop using lampp but i cant use lampp as a production server. while it makes sense to make sure that the development and server environment is the same, that really is not possible especially with developers working remotely and setting up their own development server so the next best thing i could think of is to ensure that CI will work 100% with the server. no guessing or troubleshooting what went wrong or why my app doesnt work when it works flawlessly on development server