TS 5.x to 6.x upgrade path w/ new hardware?

System

I was curious as to the best practice for upgrading. Our issue is this...the EOL for all our TS products happens this june, so we obviously have to upgrade. however, our servers also come off lease at that time and we need to move our IW instance to new hardware

1) would you upgrade to all the new versions on the old hardware then reimage the drives on the new hardware? OR
2) do fresh installs on the new hardware of the latest versions and import all data and settings?

im really not sure the best way to proceed, either way sounds messy.

also, the docs say i must upgrade to all the latest service packs for TS, OD, and DD before moving to the 6.x versions. is this correct? if the upgrade is a full install i dont see why this is necessary.

thanks in advance