Another option is to export the web part definition in the web part hosting to a .webpart file.

The content can be used as-is in an elements.xml file

Adding web parts to a web page programmatically:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb871637.aspx

A tale of three guids:

Sharepoint

Features require a guid of the form “this-is-a-guid”

For a content type you need a guid of the form “0x100thisisaguid”

For a field definition you need a guid of the form “{this-is-a-guid}”

One team, three distinct guid formats WTF

A great technique when developing a sharepoint feature receiver:

Create yourself an announcements list and have the feature log the install (or failure to do so) to this location.

 This is much less messy than debugging on a production box.

 This announcement list can be locked down so only developers and admin’s can read it.

 I have found that you can create and populate a custom list and a view in 20 lines of code (genericly).

 This contrasts to 4000 lines of xml per list/view.