Noted down for my own reference:
| a3 (AF-assist) | off | It's obtrusive in the dark and doesn't necessarily help much. If I need it I will turn it back on. |
| b2 (Easy exposure comp) | on | In practice I don't use it much; it's easier to remember the
button+rear dial combo than to keep track of which dial it uses
right now. (also, it doesn't show the actual number.) Update: disabled (off) now. |
| c4 (Monitor off times: Image review) | 10s | I want more time to chimp. The default 4 seconds is not long enough for me to pay attention. |
| d1 (Beep) | off | |
| d2 (Viewfinder grid) | on | I can't shoot level to save my life, so this helps, and the viewfinder is already permanently cluttered. (I use the same option on my point & shoot.) |
| d3 (ISO display+) | 'ISO' | Yes, i want to see my ISO as often as possible. (I would like it if the ISO stayed up even when the shutter button was half pressed.) |
| d7 (File number seq) | on | I want my numbering never to reset/etc, and the directory to never change. This is as close as I can come. |
| e6 (Bracketing order) | Under, MTR, Over | I want to shoot bracketing in low exposure to high exposure order, not middle and then the outsides, because I will be doing bracketing for HDR and this makes it simpler to keep track of which is which. |
| f3 (Func button) | AF-area mode | This is one of my most frequently changed settings, so hell yes. |
| f4 (AE-L/etc) | AE hold | I don't know enough to use exposure holding, but if I do 'tap to hold' seems to be the least obnoxious way of doing it. |
| f7 (Reverse EV indicators) | yes please | This way it matches both sanity and my point and shoot, and i have no previous Nikon experience to be backwards compatible with |
f3 and f4 are the least important settings because they are easy to change. If I am ever in a situation where auto-ISO parameters need a lot of change, or I need one-handed menu access, I will do the KR thing and reassign f3 to 'top entry on My Menu'.
(I had it set that way for a while, but found I was always using it to set the AF area mode anyways and the extra steps were irritating.)
Update, 2008-10-21: I turned b2 back off. The problem is that I can lose track of what mode I'm in and thus what dial is active (eg, I think I am in A but I am in P). If b2 is on, I wind up yanking around my exposure compensation when I try to adjust aperture instead of having nothing happen. This would probably be different with a Canon-style control allocation, but given that I don't use it much anyways, turning it off is less frustrating.
Update, 2008-10-29: customized c4. I should RCS this.
Update, 2009-01-04: customized e6 to be sensible.
My menu is set up with:
I leave the menu system set so that the battery info is the current entry; that way I can hit menu and use the front command dial to immediately see the battery status.
Since I have AF-area mode wired to Fn, it's surplus on this list and I should really remove it. But the above lowers my motivation.