Hi,
you are right to switch from Suse to e-smith. I did cut down my admin-work-time from 3+ hours weekly to 1- hours monthly by that ....

There is no way to get your users from suse to e-smith, because e-smith hostnames and users are handled in another way. The users must be created by the means of e-smith manager. Otherwise they (e.g.) will not be able to receive mail. Same for hostnames. It is very easy (compared to suse...).
Your way did not work with my server.
You should wait for Versions 5.1 as recommended or even use the 5.1beta3 version, which worked excellent for me.