Hi Ger -
Check http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=8501.
I just updated the initial content handling. You can now upload your initial wiki content into the course file area for that course. Use a separate directory for every separate wiki activity.
You can upload and select a specific file for the index page, and the rest of the pages in that directory will be loaded into every student's wiki when they create it.
If you don't use a default content directory, the wiki is created empty.
If you have wikis that have been defined but not yet created by students, you will need to update those instances with this new method.
mike