Build-in package selection during Suse Linux install (autoyast, network install)

When you install Suse Linux, the installer offers you only three choices: minimal, KDE and Gnome. Everytime I do an install I end up manually selecting lots of packages (and I forget often many which I have to add later). Yast offers the possibility to save the package selection of a currently installed system. But how to I load such a selection file (*.sel) during installation? Apparently you can load it from the hard disk or the floppy disk. But the hard disk is usually formatted for a new install and many computers (especially portables) don't have floppy drives anymore. I doubt that I can load such list from a USB stick.
Obviously when one does a network install one could put such *.sel file onto the server, but a network install is quite more demanding as it needs a server with the installer data. Suse Linux 9.2 offers a mini installer on CD, that can be used but it apparently requires the 9.2 DVD as nfs export (and then there is again no possibility to load a custom package selection file unless I modify the DVD which is again lots of work). The closest info I could come up with were the instructions how to make your own Suse distribution. This uses autoyast, especially Custom package Selections" which is probably overkill and additionally not very flexible as I need to create a new installation CD every time I change my package selection.
Other documents useful concerning autoinstallation/network installation: Autoinstall Network Installation