Add permissions for a new content type
This may not be what you're looking for but here is what we do to deploy on several production sites.


Store as much in Features as possible
Write update scripts when needed (as you've done). However, we enable modules via drush, never in code.
then run: drush en feature_module_name -y &amp;&amp; drush updb

If multiple modules need to be enabled, we normal setup a chain of dependencies in the *.info files.