Just can across a couple of great articles on how to script the creation and modification of the User Profile Properties. For those who are into repeatable process, this allows you to map out what properties you want in your environment and how you want users to interact with them. Then you can run the script through all your environments (assuming your AD/LDAP attributes are the same in all environments ;)) to configure all your farms accurately.
This one describes how to add new property mappings. ie. If you want a property called Pets that you want users to be able to fill in.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tehnoonr/archive/2010/11/22/mapping-user-profile-properties-in-sharepoint-2010-to-ldap-attributes.aspx
This one modifies existing ones (including new ones you create I guess) and allows you to set the other options around each property, like whether its alias, who can edit etc
http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/uploadfile/anavijai/modify-user-profile-properties-in-sharepoint-2010-using-powershell/
Reference material on SharePoint property constants that are used
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.office.server.userprofiles.propertyconstants_members.aspx
