I am trying to get started more seriously on becoming WP-Guru and ran across this nice addition
http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/14/advanced-layout-templates-in-wordpress-content-editor/
This allows you to create a template within the text editor for various post types. As you define these and then populate them, it drops preset HTML into the new posts/pages/whatever. Then tied to additional styling and/or JavaScript on the front end you have a simple way to keep the layout and site more consistent without teaching a lot of code to the end users.
When I start working on custom templates this seems like important knowledge-
http://wp.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/12/developers-guide-conflict-free-javascript-css-wordpress/
I found this on social media plug-ins: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/top-social-bookmarking-wordpress-plugins/. I have a like button (feel free to click it) but there is more than Facebook out there!
Otherwise I am reviewing lists and lists of plug-ins and other tools to see what works best for me.