The problem of manual and GUI changes corrupting each other has been a problem with Mac OS X Server from the beginning. Apple has fixed the problem with some services, most notably Apache, by adding documentation in files explaining how to manually edit them. But I've noticed the documentation comes late and only if Apple is invested in the technology. In the mean time administrators have to learn by trail-and-error what works and what doesn't as I see occuring among your readers.

I would very much like to see an O'Reilly article explaining the idiocyncracies of editing Mac OS X Server services. Depending on Apple's interest in the technology and its tenure on the platform the methods of manual editing can vary widely. Sometimes files should be only edited with the GUI applications provided, sometimes a combination of GUI and manual editing works, sometimes editing includes editing Plist files, or Netinfo directories, or LDAP attibutes in addition to the etc files.