I should amend...I do have a few shelves setup but they're more for specialized tasks like creating paintfx hair....or using CPS. I rarely use them but I can definitely see their usefulness. Most of the time I have everything in the UI gone except for the views and their panel menus. I toggle the attribute editor and the channel box on/off as need be with hotkeys as well as the outliner and several other windows I use frquently.

I think the hotbox is pretty consistent for me because I use the default that shows all the menus. Then I just have specialized marking menus setup for various modeling types and editing so I don't have to hunt for them in the hotbox. As I go along, I find more things that I tend to use alot and just add them to the appropriate marking menu.