I'm trying to reproduce this by just making extrusions. I'm not sure if that's the best method 
I would have used curves, but your way is working. Plus it looks great.
It is for sure a valid one, I'd extrude those out as well. You can also use bezier curves. You can see JL using them on this video:
https://cgcookie.com/lessons/blocking-out-the-switch-and-controller
Small exercise without tutorial. I don't want to render because I don't know anything about lights or textures
I've heard of an addon to clean a mesh. Remove the double poly and erase the lost vertices. Do you have an addon to recommend to me? 
Did something 'like this' (and yet completely different) for day 28 of the "30 days of modeling": https://cgcookie.com/community/7738-30-days-of-modeling?page=1 (have a look at that thread, it's fun!)
