One of the most important things you can do to brew great beer is ensure you have a healthy, unstressed yeast population. From pitching rates, fermentation temperature, avoiding contamination by competitive organisms, all the way through bottle conditioning; an unhappy yeast culture will kill a batch faster than you can drop a 5 gallon glass carboy on a concrete patio.
As long as your clean, you can do prepare your yeast for storage outside of a lab.
The best way to ensure you have the happiest yeast possible is to completely control the cold-chain of your yeast supply. By that I mean yeast ranching, and doing it the right way to ensure you have a real, pitchable amount on brew day. Add in the ability to archive rare strains, as well...