Permissions with Stsadm Import/Export
This is mostly an advisory FYI, and probably a good reason to view log files (as most of us do not when we get "success" messages).
I am less than satisfied with the Import and Export commands in STSADM, but this is one of those problems that seems to keep popping up, causing me enough grief that I feel the need to share it.
We generally use a higher privileged account to run the SharePoint install and Farm, thus allowing it proper permissions to run STSADM commands on the servers. It is not safe to assume this user necessarily has access to all data in your web applications and site collections.
If you design and develop a site collection that you plan to export and import into a new environment, or keep for backup purposes, be aware that the account used to login and run STSADM must have at least read access to all data in your site collection. Since the farm administrator is not always set as a site collection administrator, this can definitely cause problems.
It makes complete sense from a security standpoint, but is very easy to forget when just building out your environment. When you run the export command, everything will look fine, except data (lists, listitems, sites, etc.) that your currently logged in use does not have access to will just be absent from your export.
Keep this in mind as you plan your farm.
I hope this helps,
-Ryan