Personally I would not buy a bike untill I had ridden it, but thats me. If you decide to buy a bike from another state you can use an escrow company (there are many on the net) that you both agree on. Put the money in escrow and then when he sends you the bike and title they will release the money to the seller. As for paperwork all you need is a clean title that the seller has signed off on.
You can use forward air to ship, costs about $400 cross country. They have nice bike specific metal crates that you put your lock (combination) on and you use your tie downs. The have locations in most major cities, oh and they are on the net too.