The Features module has become a de facto tool in configuration management in Drupal 7. In fact, most Drupal distributions now utilize Features to export configuration and handle updates to the configuration. There is one pitfall - Features was meant to be a way to export a feature set.
I've been a fan of Platform.sh since it came out, even before I started at Commerce Guys. I'm a fan of using builder tools for constructing projects - Composer or Drush make (latter for Drupal) - instead of putting extra code into version control.
Recently I presented at the Drupal 414 user group in Milwaukee on "Drupal Commerce, Deconstructed" to break down what makes Drupal Commerce and better explain some of its inner workings. The goal isn't to blow the minds of advanced users, but to sell it to all on its flexibility and help users understand why certain things are how they are.
I don't use the built in update functionality provided by the Update module for updating code. I like to use it for reminders and push back statistics of modules used for Drupal.org. However, someone people do use it. Sometimes this piece of functionality can fail and throw an interesting message which doesn't seem to have many answers despite the best Google-fu.
Drupal Commerce entities all make use of the "data" attribute. The data attribute is a blob that contain just about anything you would like - for example, Commerce Shipping utilizes this for shipping line items.
If there's one thing we've all grown to encounter in Drupal it has, and probably will always be, configuration management. Drupal 8 is looking to solve a lot of that. However a lot of us don't live in the Drupal 8 world and can't sit and wait for that "magical" day.
I've been using Vagrant at work for a few months now - and I got into it specifically for mimicking our production environment. If you don't know about Vagrant, I highly suggest you check it out. I recently purchased an iMac and I'm utilizing Vagrant VMs for all development.