moving from test site to live I currently have a test Drupal site where I am testing the different modules and Views, display settings, etc that I would like to eventually use on my live site. But I am adding data to the test site as well, data that will also end up on the live site.

Because I am installing and uninstalling modules, would it be better to start the live site from scratch or can I safely move the test site to the live site without worrying about orphan code/settings slowing down or otherwise adversely affecting the live site?
One of the most common ways to move configuration data is to use the Features module.  However, this will move only configuration, not data (nodes/content).  Still, it's not too difficult to set up; you can take a look at this tutorial for an overview.

Moving data is much harder; the Migrate and Feeds modules are two common ways to do this but both are quite painful to set up and probably not worth the trouble.  For content, I just keep a list of the info in an Excel file and then cut and paste it in-- it's not a great solution, but in my case it saves a lot of time.