Forum Best practices? (vb3(prod) --> vb4(dev) migration)
 

Okay, here is my setup

www.mysite.com -> runs vb3 (dbuser1 @ database1)
dev.mysite.com -> runs vb4 (dbuser2 @ database2)

To create my dev site I disabled every mods in my vb3 then I did a mysqldump + tgz of my files
Once the files were backuped I have re-enabled all the mods and re-opened my forum.

I have restored my sqldump in the database2 and my tgz file into a new directory.

From now on, everything is done on the dev site.

I then proceeded to upgrade to v3.8.4 (Yes I am a bit behind. I have planned to do the 3.8.4 update on my prod. site tonight)
Once completed I have migrated to v4

Since then I've spent a lot of time on my vb4 forum to make things as functionnal as before (modded some templates, created a new module, changing the languages, etc..)

Now I have an easy question.

All this time that I have spent working on my dev site..
Would it be possible to just import the changes in the databases from my Live site (running v3.8.4) to my dev forum and then just switch them ?

I don't want to spend the 4-5 hours I have spent working on my dev site to upgrade my production site. I would like to minimize the downtime by just importing the changes...

I'm a bit worried to use ImpEx, I tried my migration by first installing a fresh new install of vb4.0 then use ImpEx to import my vb3 database and it screwed a lot of stuff (forums permissions, forums display order, etc..)

I would like to have a smooth transition from vb3 to vb4 and not spend again all the time I have spent to do my migration in dev.

Anyone have a solution? What's hte best practices?

Thanks