I'm the customer who asked the question. Here is additional information on what I've tried thus far.
Per suggestions from a Quest team member I read the article linked here http://whatsthesharepoint.com/2010/05/removing-options-with-jquery/. I was able to use the code and remove the filter options as described in the article, but I don't know how I can repurpose the code to preselect the filter values. I would also need a way to fire up the search at the time the page is loaded, without having to click on "Go".
Thanks.