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[jimboob]

I always get to a point where a good chunk of my population is idle unless I have a serious megaproject or large amount of hauling to do, which isn't always the case. Is this just a natural thing for dwarves? Is it bad for them?

Also I can't figure out how to get my dwarves to pick up bolts. They aren't forbidden and IIRC I enabled them for pick up in the 'o' screen. Same thing with clothes that are strewn about my fort, they seem to stay forever. cleanowned doesn't seem to have much of an effect even though it says it 'cleaned' thousands of items...

[PatrikLundell]

Some dorfs like work, while some do not, so being free to pursue needs is good for some of them.
If you have a steady migration stream and not much attrition you'll more or less inevitably reach the point where you've got more dorfs than work. You can pick up some slack through military training (some dorfs like that, some hate it).
Given that an excess of dorfs (or other creatures) is bad for the fortress FPS it's probably a good idea to limit the number of dorfs you get via the pop caps (although aiming to become the mountainhome will probably leave you with a lot of idle dorfs).

DF currently does not know how to re-stack bolts, which can cause bolts to become a significant clutter factor. You can melt them down (which results in a material profit due to how DF handles it) and reforge them into new bolts to get stacks. I typically mark them for melting (they're brought by goblins, typically) and that works. Given that used bolts don't stack, you need a lot of space to store them in stockpiles, and it doesn't help that bins are even less compatible with bolts than with anything else.

Dorfs tend not to get rid of worn clothes as they're owned, but cleanowned scattered x typically cause them to be marked for dumped (but you need a dump zone, although a single tile is enough, or there's nowhere to haul them). From there I can get them to be hauled to the trade depot for removal from the map via the garbage trucks, a.k.a. caravans (you need to remove the 'f'orbidden flag to get them moved from the dump zone, but that's easily done with d-b-c).

[jimboob]

That's good to know about the bolts, thanks. If I keep making more then my hunters will help themselves to newly crafted bolts?

As far and some dwarves liking certain things...how extensive does the average DF player comb through each dwarf's description looking for the proper lifestyle for him or her? Just seems like a lot of work.

[Fleeting Frames]

Yep, they will, provided hunters have enough bolts allocated to them in military - ammunition. The default is 100 for all hunters total. (I personally just keep the fallen bolts unforbidden (may be dangerous to haulers) and qsp them, though could easily set  up a scheme where fallen bolts are brought to automelt pile next to forge.)

Depends on how much you care and how long-term/rp-focused the fort is, really. Starting seven typically get more careful consideration than the 70th migrant. Dwarf Therapist also takes preferences and attributes into account, and can take personality into account, for showing who is most suitable for given job/role (such as empathic doctor or curious scholar), so that's most of the gameplay benefits of looking already done/taken/moot. You can turn on autolabor and follow "no dwarf matters", or you can carefully craft suites filled with preferred things for each and every dwarf you have in your fortress, only raising popcap by one when all previous suites are ready.

As for idleness, yeah pretty much. You may consider lowering your population, but no matter the population it's going to happen without anything else to do than survive as one dwarf doesn't need to work all the time to provide the needs for that one dwarf.

[anewaname]

You can also reduce ammunition litter if your hunters only use wooden bolts, which always break on impact (set the material type in the military ammunition screen for Hunters to wood, then to metal for all other squads). It will take more shots for the hunters to bring down their target but there is no ammunition clean-up and they get more practice time per animal.

Consider having about 10 hunters instead of 2 or 3. When a new herd of animals trespasses on your lands, the hunters will finish sooner and return to the safety of the fort sooner.

If you do not have a temple and tavern, adding them lead to fewer idlers

[Starver]

I'm always (up until the very point I save the game for the last time and henceforth entirely forget to open it again to continue, whilst pursuing other worldgen projects or...  *gasp* ...non-DF things) so heavily micromanaging things that there's almost always more things to do than there are dorfs to do them.

My idle-counter rarely spikes above enumerating a handful of sedantary citizens for any appreciable amount of game-time, even in a fortress with.a three figure population.

My biggest job-sink is stone hauling out of the almost continuous expansionist diggings out, below-ground or above, of various kinds.

[Libash_Thunderhead]

It means you they don't have things to do, not that they are lazy.
In another word, you don't have enough jobs.