Configuration management can be a real issue. For Drupal 8 there is the Configuration Management Initiative meant to solve just this problem. It will be there i

Configuration management can be a real issue. For Drupal 8 there is the Configuration Management Initiative meant to solve just this problem. It will be there in Drupal 8. Features has some very rough edges. It's a bolt on after the fact solution. Through it Drupal developers learned about the rough edges, what people want here, and so forth. What comes in Drupal 8 is meant to be a proper solution at the core from experience.