Janine, re the portal_element_map_sk_seq problem, the nextval issue is a big problem that needs to be addressed globally. We're trying to avoid splitting up queries by database based only on a nextval incompatibility. Unfortunately, finding a good general solution to this problem has been .. difficult.
For now, I've proposed a hack to db_nextval that will make the query work for both sequences that are sequences, as well as sequences that are views-acting-as-sequences. That thread is here.
With this updated db_nextval, moving the portlets around works without splitting up the queries, and will also alleviate the need to split up future nextval queries into multiple xql files. Let's see what people have to say about this approach in that thread.
