3 votes from me (just because I happened to have 3 votes left)!
In my opinion, we should have user-defined default settings. At the moment, you have to take two mouse actions to set up an item as a project. First you have to select project (or Alt-J), then you have to click on status. Ideally, I'd want a project with no completed actions to default to "not started", Switch to "in progress" as soon as I start checking off actions and then "completed" whenever I check off the project itself. If I make it suspended at any point, it should go back to "in progress" once I start checking actions off again. The more automation and the fewer clicks, the better.
Stéphane