I've been using this init file to load my org-mode-contained emacs
configuration  :

;;; init.el --- Where all the magic begins
;;
;; This file loads both
;; - Org-mode : http://orgmode.org/ and
;; - Org-babel:
http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/babel/org-babel.php#library-of-babel
;;
;; It then loads the rest of our Emacs initialization from Emacs lisp
;; embedded in literate Org-mode files.
;; Load up Org Mode and Org Babel for elisp embedded in Org Mode files
(setq dotfiles-dir (file-name-directory (or (buffer-file-name)
load-file-name)))

(let* ((org-dir (expand-file-name
                 "lisp" (expand-file-name
                         "org-mode" (expand-file-name
                                "elisp" dotfiles-dir))))
       (org-contrib-dir (expand-file-name
                         "lisp" (expand-file-name
                                 "contrib" (expand-file-name
                                            ".." org-dir))))
       (load-path (append (list org-dir org-contrib-dir)
                          (or load-path nil))))
  ;; load up Org-mode and Org-babel
  (require 'org-install)
  (require 'org-babel-init)
  (require 'org-babel-emacs-lisp))
;; load up all literate org-mode files in this directory
(mapc 'org-babel-load-file (directory-files dotfiles-dir t "\\.org$"))
;;; init.el ends here


It's been working nicely until I tried to clean things up by setting some
commonly used variables  in properties drawers, and access them from
emacs-lisp src blocks.

The following illustrates my intent, and will behave as expected with
org-babel-execute-buffer, but fails when it is loaded by org-babel-load-file
:

* Configuration
:PROPERTIES:
:ELISP-DIR:~/emacs.d/elisp/
:END:

** Load Path
#+begin_src emacs-lisp
(add-to-list 'load-path (org-entry-get nil "ELISP-DIR" t))
#+end_src

From my understanding, orb-babel-load-file tangles then loads the file,
losing the variables in the process.

I've been using this function to get the expected behaviour, but the default
somewhat breaks expectations, don't you think ?
 (defun
        ba/org-babel-load-file (file) (with-temp-buffer
(insert-file-contents
        file) (org-mode) (org-babel-execute-buffer)))

Or, is there a cleaner way to achieve this ?

Regards,
julien