What kind of SLA do you have with your remote DBA? Why not renegotiate this or move your support to a better support.
My company Symba Ltd (symba.co.uk) provide very effective and pro-active remote support services.
It may sound like a good idea to have a local copy of the db but the downside is the time and effort it would take to 'duplicate' the live to the local db. Initially you would need to get the local db configuration to identical state as the production. Otherwise having a local db is a good idea which allows you to get your job done quicker.
R.
