I definitely see your point about most guides detailing how to make your init (I don't understand why so many people just tell you to disable tabs, as though it's understood that everyone prefers spaces), but there are certain things that everyone will want. For instance, when given the choice between an older bytecode file and a newer source file, Emacs loads the older one by default. That sort of thing doesn't really seem like the sort of thing you want people to have to experience for themselves.

(The setting in question I am referring to is load-prefer-newer)