Getting iPads ready with paid apps and customized settings for a large amount of personnel? Suppose I would like to have over 20 iPads. Is it possible to get the same settings to them fast? One iPad would have a lot of paid apps, I am trying to find out how I can get it so that everyone is using the same apps and same iPads with the same settings -- and only email/etc personalized.

I believe there is no sense that I shared my own iPad's backup, here. I want to make sure all people have the best tools/apps/etc in their iPads before starting to work.

It would be a big plus if the manager could install/upgrade new apps in iPads without other people to worry so everyone running the same apps of the same version number.
Apple has a whole section of their support site for deploying iPads "to the Enterprise". What you'll likely find the most useful are the items about the Apple Configurator, which is a free app (available here) for managing and configuring large numbers of iOS devices.

You may also be interested in this Ars Technica article about iOS 6's management features.