Interesting! I have so many questions :D Why only Emacs 23? Is that the version that is installed on the server? Emacs 23 dates back to 2009 and if they say it's the only available version I suspect that the system is outdated long time ago. Could mean that security flaws are present, and those might be your ticket to having it upgraded along with Emacs ;)

I'm not sure about the connection, but in case you don't know, Emacs has tramp. Simplified it downloads files from a remote server over ssh so you can edit them with your own config, and then uploads them once you save.