What exactly happens when you trash the contents inside SystemConfiguration? I assume that things like smb servers list, preferences and everything else gets wiped out?

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I've deleting files in this folder forever (at least a year through all updates) as my MacBook has problems with my home network. Not as much gets deleted as one would expect. Lately I've just been deleting com.apple.airport.preferences.plist.

You can of course backup your files and try it out. Create a .zip file or .dmg of the folder, delete and reboot (or turn Airport on and off). If you lose something you wanted, just replace the new files with the old ones. Keep the backup though as the files might get written too during the shutdown.

I started doing this based on something I found on the internet. Checked my notes, it's been over two years with different computers. Here's one of the recommendations:
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If you delete a few files in:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/

NetworkInterfaces.plist, 

com.apple.network.identification.plist, and

preferences.plist

 - then on a reboot OS X will rescan your network ports and generally Do The Right Thing.
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from a comment here:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20080227061320185

I don't have the source for an earlier similar recommendation.

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Deleting the network interface configuration files is standard procedure when moving a system image to dissimilar hardware, and is documented in Apple Training Series: Mac OS X Deployment v10.5. The files i always remove when creating a system image to deploy on multiple disimilar machines are

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/NetworkInterfaces.plist /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.network.identification.plist /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/preferences.plist

Use sudo to grant you the rights to delete these three files, then reboot. You'll need to rename your computer in the Sharing preference pane and any non-automatic settings needed for your network interface.

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