I've started to address this issue by reserving the first 1000 ids for the "staging" (or if you prefer, "install profile"). So for instance node nid 10 comes from the install profile, while node nid 1010 is on the production server only. Same goes for vocabulary with vid 10 (or 1010), menu with mid 10 (or 1010), etc. Later, I can add node 11 to the install profile and propigate it to my production site easily enough and without fear of overwriting anything that's been configured on the production server. You can read exactly how I do this here <http://dave-cohen.com/node/1066>. -Dave
Alan -- thanks for this write up. I think the staging/production server issue is one that merits attention. A lot of times, it means we're running without a safety net -- it is too hard to merge (config, content) changes between a dev site and a live site...so lots of people just don't, or do extra work in re-doing the same config steps on a live site.