We have a *lot* of preferences - in my view way too many - and there should be at least some discussion about the default values we provide for 5.3 
tl;dr - Too many preferences, too badly organised. reduce, make decisions, simplify.

I can't imagine I'll hit all of them here but let's try to get something done - 

Arithmetic 
Should we have these as preferences? How many people understand enough about Burnikel-Ziegler recursion splits to make it sensible to easily change?

Compiler
I claim we are long past the point where enabling block argument assignments or underscore assignment should be a default. Fix your damn code!
Are we sticking with the EncoderForV3PlusClosures encoder?

Examples
These are for the test suite and if possible should be hidden

Files
The one entry here relates to the encoding of stdio streams so maybe this category should be renamed?

Graphics
Both entries relate to sub-pixel font rendering, so again, rename?

Morphic
So. Many. Preferences.
Surely at least the text edit related ones ought to be removed and kept to the 'editing' section?

OLPC
Really?

TextDiff
Could be better placed; in Tools?

Tools
'Use unified message labels' What does this do? Is it worth allowing a choice for this sort of thing?

browsing
Aargh! More options than 31 flavour ice-cream stores! How many are actually of value?
'ignore style if only bold'?
'menu button in tool pane' - no actual senders, for example

colors
'Use the new color picker' - is the new color pick not our pick for picking colors? If it still isn't the sensible choice more than 10 years later, maybe we should dump it completely.

fileout
are there ever good reasons to not have 24 hr timestamps? For not checking for slips?

general
Wow, still more flavours of ice-cream.
'Read only mode' - no senders. It's so old there is no timestamp.
'Use locale' is there any reason to ever not use it?

.... and my brain melted at this point.



tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
Useful random insult:- Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel.