Mark
I agree with Andy in that
1) If the switch is running L3 then a loopback is the best way to manage it.
2) A network wide management vlan goes against the hierarchical model
Both of the above points are really to do with L3 vs L2. You should not be extending vlans from the access-layer all the way to the core through the distribution layer so that is in effect why you shouldn't have on flat management vlan.
Where i differ slightly is that if you have an access-layer that is connected to the distribution layer via L2 trunks then there is nothing wrong with using one vlan to manage all the access-layer switches. And i would not choose an existing data/voice vlan to do this, i would use a dedicated vlan which simplifies QOS configurations etc..
One thing i forgot to say. Best practices are very useful and come out of years of experience from Cisco's involvement with networks but they are still just recommendations. They don't have to be followed slavishly and they do change. If you are designing/implementing a green field site then by all means follow all the best practices but it's not always that simple to implement in an exsiting network.
In answer to your original question you could use vlan 1 and then switch over later. But you need to be aware that if the switches are primarily L2 you would want to be at the console. On L3 switches it is relatively easy because you can have multple L3 vlan interfaces up at the same time. With L2 switches it can be more challenging because to bring up another L3 vlan interface you have to shut down the original one.
Jon
