best way to have custom /etc produced with "make release"

[Aryeh Friedman]

I need to duplicate a running system completly and the three main
hurdles I have had with "make release" are:

1. How do I make it so all the hand mods in /etc are used for the
files to populate /etc on sysinstall from R/cdrom/dvd?
2. I am rather confused on how to make it so when the user installs
ports/package it only have the ones installed on the reference system?
3. I need to copy over 2 user's home dirs to the dvd?

A side question is there any way to avoid the manual mkisofs step to
make the actual ISO (make iso.1 seems to fail)