custom "ports" in layouts

I do a lot of custom layout in Skill generating fairly sophisticated curvilinear shapes. I would like to add "ports" to these P-Cells in a way that will extend to being able to create schematic symbols with the pin names matching the ports on the layout. The characteristics of a port are:

1) a port name that is a string
2) an (X,Y) coordinate pair that is the location of the port
3) another (X,Y) coordinate pair where the vector between the location coordinate pair and this pair encodes directionality
4) the physical width of the port (e.g. the width of the underlying shape)

I currently use the dbCreateHierProp() procedure to make a "ports" property for P-Cell layouts that have a list of ports with the above information encoded in it. I then have custom procedures that create shapes and text that display where the ports are and their names. However, this text and shapes are not really linked to the "ports" property after they are created. So, hiding, showing, and updating the port text and shapes is not as clean as I would like it to be. Also, as I mentioned, I would like to use these ports as a basis for creating pins in a schematic and eventually running LVS. So, to summarize, the functionality I am trying to build is: 

1) have "ports" attached to layouts
2) some of the ports will correspond to pins in schematics
3) be able to easily toggle on/off the port information in layout view

Questions: 

1) is dbCreateHierProp() the right way to go about this? Or am I reinventing the wheel and am missing some functionality that is already built-in? 
2) what is the recommended way to create a custom layout symbol and text that displays the port information? Ideally, it would have a shape representing where the port is and its directionality as well as text that has the port name, directionality, and width
3) what is a good way to toggle on and off the shapes and info from question #2? 
4) what is a good way to derive pins that will correspond to schematic pins from the port information? 

I have decent experience writing custom Skill for layouts, but I haven't written functionality to toggle shapes/information in layout view. And, I haven't written any functionality to relate layout views with schematic views. So, being pointed in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!