swupdate -i -a was good to put in a cronjob for 9am on the demos, to keep them up to date. (much more to it than that, but that's the meat of it)

10.8 doesn't have OS updates in there anymore. Is there a way to trigger software update runs or checks from terminal in 10.8?

This article seems to think that the softwareupdate command should still work under Mountain lion.

http://osxdaily.com/2012/09/14/update-os-x-mountain-lion-without-the-app-store/

as does this one as well.

http://www.cultofmac.com/191986/bypass-the-mac-app-store-to-update-mountain-lion-software/

Got a clarification on this. Bundled apps like iLife require the app store I think

That would be true of any app purchased through the app store because of the App Store registration embedded in each app.

right, but if that were all that was to it, softwareupdate should update it...