Mark,

I'm a "wordsmith," too, so I've put a lot of thought into this one. The arrangement I use on the QAT (in Word) is as follows:

Save, Save As, Save All | New | Show All, Spell | Open, Open Recent | Close | Envelope & Label Wizard | Undo, Redo | Quick Print, Print PReview

The pipe symbol ( | ) represents "separators" - located at the very top of the menus of tools. These are just to visually group some of the commands and to give me a little more slack in pointing - like so I don't close the document I'm in when I wanted to open a recent document or start the envelope wizard. For some of these you have to change the top selection menu to "All Commands" to find.

Now, for example, "Save" is a single click instead of "File," then re-aim and click "Save" on the file menu. Many others in this list become one click instead of two, three, or four.

That said, the choice of commands should be whatever you (the user) uses most often and don't want to go hunting after through the Ribbon or the File menu. I do something similar with each of the Office programs, arranging them, as much as possible, in the same sequence, so I know easily where they are on the QAT. Hope this also makes your life easier.