Your list is quite longer than mine :P but I see what your pointing at.
I never use my localhost to update production sites, I do however, dl the production site to use it on my localhost while I create/adjust the theme (saved me the time to create a local db with all kinds of content, the easy way out, I know..). The only times I did do localhost to production is when it is a completely new site. Yeah I know.. it was the easy option.. Saved me the time of manually copying page/forum structures and whatnot from local to production. But if that breaks things now, I will quit doing that :)
Well, your post is now in my cotonti folder for future reverence, so thank you for your elaborate answers. Cheers!
