porting crufty old init.el to package management

[Tom Roche]

I've been using emacs for ~20 years, during which I have

1. accumulated a functional but aesthetically- and maintenance-challenged 
collection of {init.el, files it calls}
2. regularly bemoaned the lack of emacs package management

The latter problem has been solved (non-uniquely :-) for awhile now, and I'm 
setting up a new box, so I really should port my emacs configuration to the new 
millenium. I'm wondering, would anyone care to recommend especially worthy docs 
for this process (guides, howto's, tutorials)? esp how best to accommodate 
snippets of elisp (gists?)

TIA, Tom Roche <Tom_Roche@pobox.com>