[svachalek]

When it comes to any mass-market consumer product, 99% of the users (I'm exaggerating, no, probably not) will leave all settings at the default. Therefore the default settings have orders of magnitude more real-world testing than all non-default setting combinations COMBINED. Nearly any mature product is therefore bound to behave dramatically better on its default settings than in any other configuration in sheer defiance of what "should" happen.

[fields]

That really depends. It's completely untrue for, say, TVs:

http://prolost.com/blog/2011/3/28/your-new-tv-ruins-movies.h...