Thanks for the prompt reply.
I didn't mean to suggest that your guides are The One & Only, Infallible Way of Doing Things. I have always treated them as suggestions (very good ones), but the writing style may sometimes give a little bit stronger impression of something than may be warranted by the specific circumstances.
The question about the default settings was just something that I figured suited this thread best of all, because all the guides are linked from here. And now everything can be compared to what the actual settings are on any given game. Such as the example of my own defaults, with indies 7 and magic sites reduced 1 or 2 steps from default most of the time.
Thanks again for all the effort you've put into the guides.