Self-restarting MathKernel - is it possible in Mathematica?

From a comment by Arnoud Buzing yesterday, on Stack Exchange Mathematica chat, quoting entirely:

In a notebook, if you have multiple cells you can put Quit in a cell by itself and set this option:

SetOptions[$FrontEnd, "ClearEvaluationQueueOnKernelQuit" -> False]

Then if you have a cell above it and below it and select all three and evaluate, the kernel will Quit but the frontend evaluation queue will continue (and restart the kernel for the last cell).

-- Arnoud Buzing

The following approach runs one kernel to open a front-end with its own kernel, which is then closed and reopened, renewing the second kernel.

This file is the MathKernel input, C:\Temp\test4.m

Needs["JLink`"];
$FrontEndLaunchCommand="Mathematica.exe";
UseFrontEnd[
nb = NotebookOpen["C:\\Temp\\run.nb"];
SelectionMove[nb, Next, Cell];
SelectionEvaluate[nb];
];
Pause[8];
CloseFrontEnd[];
Pause[1];
UseFrontEnd[
nb = NotebookOpen["C:\\Temp\\run.nb"];
Do[SelectionMove[nb, Next, Cell],{12}];
SelectionEvaluate[nb];
];
Pause[8];
CloseFrontEnd[];
Print["Completed"]

The demo notebook, C:\Temp\run.nb contains two cells:

x1 = 0;
Module[{}, 
 While[x1 < 1000000, 
  If[Mod[x1, 100000] == 0, Print["x1=" <> ToString[x1]]]; x1++];
 NotebookSave[EvaluationNotebook[]];
 NotebookClose[EvaluationNotebook[]]]

Print[x1]
x1 = 0;
Module[{}, 
 While[x1 < 1000000, 
  If[Mod[x1, 100000] == 0, Print["x1=" <> ToString[x1]]]; x1++];
 NotebookSave[EvaluationNotebook[]];
 NotebookClose[EvaluationNotebook[]]]

The initial kernel opens a front-end and runs the first cell, then it quits the front-end, reopens it and runs the second cell.

The whole thing can be run either by pasting (in one go) the MathKernel input into a kernel session, or it can be run from a batch file, e.g. C:\Temp\RunTest2.bat

@echo off
setlocal
PATH = C:\Program Files\Wolfram Research\Mathematica\8.0\;%PATH%
echo Launching MathKernel %TIME%
start MathKernel -noprompt -initfile "C:\Temp\test4.m"
ping localhost -n 30 > nul
echo Terminating MathKernel %TIME%
taskkill /F /FI "IMAGENAME eq MathKernel.exe" > nul
endlocal

It's a little elaborate to set up, and in its current form it depends on knowing how long to wait before closing and restarting the second kernel.