Ohiojay,
I have taken your advice and put them back in the greenhouse for a while. Since this is my first experience with tropical bare root plants I am kind of flying blind with these.
As far as the soaking procedure, I was taught the technique many years ago by a very experienced nurseryman as a method for planting bare-root temperate fruits and roses. I do not know if he had any science behind it, but the logic was the same as yours. The plants have experienced quite a shock from being pulled from the ground and losing all their roots. Even when packed in moist material, the whole packing/transport/unpacking process leaves them quite desiccated and stressed. So he said that to help them to get rehydrated, soak them for at least 4 hours (6-8 hours being optimum with overnight fine) but not more than 24 hours before planting. He also recommended adding a very small amount of fish emulsion (I was out of this at the time) or soluble fertilizer to the water.
Now this is for plants destined to be planted directly outside, but since I have never lost a bare root plant before, it seems to help and I figured that it could not hurt with these.
Just to clarify, I was soaking the root zone, not the whole plant.
I was wondering if the root zone heating helped. That was just the default set up since this is where I sprout my seeds, but once again I figured it could not hurt.