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I've only done one retouch so far - of my wife on our wedding day. (I'll post the before & afters when I get home tonight).

Before I did it, i researched A  LOT on the internet, and decided to use parts of several methods that I'd seen.  Essentially, i used the patch tool and the clone stamp tool for imperfections, then smoothed out the tones with the surface blur.  I found a wicked tutorial which shows you how to apply the surface blurred areas in a realistic way, so that you still get the skin texture showing through, but a really nice, natural looking skin tone.

I have since researched further, and have stumbled across 2 other methods (which can be used together) called "Dodge & Burn retouching" and "frequency separation"  These 2 methods are used by the very high end retouch studios.  When I've done a retouch with these methods, I'll post the results (don't hold your breath though!)

I don't have the links to the tutorials that I found here at work, so again, I'll post them when I get home tonight.