Actually, it has little to do with the techs day.
It's all provisioning. At the local mom and pop
CLEC, it actually may be the techs day. YMMV. 
DSX indicates a cross connect in the loop.
A cross connect is a dumb mechanical device that does nothing
except put access points in the "long haul" circuit so that you
can troubleshoot in case of an error or failure. The X
connect, depending upon interconnect or full cross connect
capability, determines how much test, add, drop, or move
capability you have. All the cross connect equipment I
am aware of is capable of E1/T1.
A smartjack is a dumb device as well, just creating a loop when
you disconnect from it which enables the telco to test facing
themselves. That's why you want one in your cabinet facing them.
If you want to insure you are not a TYPE 2 powered drop from
the CO or remote, find out what the CLLI code of providers
net is and use that as the Z end when ordering. If they don't
have equipment and are going to buy a tail circuit, the last mile,
give them someone elses mux CLLI and tell them it's a "preferred
provider". The CLLI code is almost always printed/taped/labeled
on the front of the device.
As far as distance goes, I can cover a 150,000 s/f collocation space from
one end to the other with shielded ABAM and wire wrap termination blocks.
For this purpose, an ethernet cable should be fine for a long ways.
You can tweak out the LBO if necessary, but you want to do this only
if you have to. Messing with the dB levels could be problematic and should
be done in conjuction with the provider.
-M