Enemies on screen for Barrage

Random enemy generators just don't seem to work too well with a side scrolling shooter.  It looks like I may have to go back to my original method of loading the enemies from a flat file.  I will also need to work on adding obstacles that the player must avoid.  While I find it fun and interesting to tackle theses problems I really wish I could find better examples of how others have done this.  I'm sure that the methods I am using are not the best but they get the job done.  Microsoft has great starter kits that explain a lot about getting your game started but it seems a bit lacking in tutorials that deal with this stuff.  Time to put the nose to the grind stone and figure out my own method.