Many thanks for the quick feedback.
OK, sounds pretty easy. Most of these steps can be done straight from the vSphere client - right?
If I delete the VMs from the inventory and on re-creation of the inventory from my new datastore, are all the original settings from each VM kept? Are these saved in the .vmx file?
If I chose to upgrade to ESXi 5, at what stage should I do this - before or after the migration? I have a ESXi, 4.0.0, 208167 - can I upgrade directly? Any risks here?