How to create a custom feed from the output of a VS2012 Web Deploy Package

I want to create a custom feed from the output of selecting the Web Deploy Package option from the publish web action in VS2012. I have worked for about 1 week trying to fall into the pit of success but have not been able to create a custom feed that works taking advantage of the WebPi installer. The existing documentation seems to be out of date and I can't find any references on the structure and options of the product feed xml:
How do discover hints work, incompatibilities, installers,oslist, installer commands,tabs, pillarTab?, all the keywords and keywordids, webpifile versions,languages, resources etc... ok nothing seems to be documented afaik

I've looked at the following and they seem to be out dated and incomplete:

http://blogs.iis.net/kateroh/archive/2010/02/11/webpi-apis-install-a-product-from-a-custom-feed.aspx

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4617780/how-to-take-advantage-of-wpi-to-distribute-our-software

http://blogs.iis.net/kateroh/archive/2009/10/24/web-pi-extensibility-custom-feeds-installing-custom-products.aspx

How can I create a msi from the zip file, as you must be doing it since all the files listed in the webproduclist.xml are msi and people submit the deploy zip files. What is the advantage of the msi vs zip.

How about a simple, commented, example of a feed with one tab, one product, installing it with the output of the web deploy zip output from vs2012.

Thanks,

Jay