ah well, I don't know if I'm qualified to answer that. It depends on what you mean by nice forts...
Sometimes I'm slow with the bedrooms, but it's usually because it's tedious and I don't want to be bothered with it.
Don't rush to smoothing things until you have more laborers than jobs. And then about 1-5 smoother should be enough (I aim for 2) -- just be patient and remember that the more dwarfs are smoothing, the more stone will need to be smoothed before they are legends (If you want Masterwork engravings: smooth everything, then engrave)
If you insist on having masterwork furniture in every room, you will never be on time unless you are very lucky with a mood. You might as well rely on dorms until you get a legendary furniture dwarf and enough supplies (Metal? Stone? Wood?).
Be ready for ambushes and sieges. You can just lock them out if you want, but 1 skilled soldier can stop an ambush, a well equipped squad can stop a siege. A legendary soldier doesn't really need armor and only really needs to fear being overwhelmed, stunned, webbed, or sniped while fighting and deadly dust type mega beast hax. Crossbows are great, but even a mass of skilled shooters won't guarantee stopping an ambush before they close. They need defenses like walls or another squad.
I've found that you can get close to legendary soldiers before the first goblin ambush -- no danger rooms, no exploits, nothing cheesy like beating armadillos with wooden swords. If you want details, ask.
I have a list of jobs (a simple .txt file) and the number of dwarfs I want doing them as a default setup. about 40 - 50 positions (It varies depending on what I want to do with THIS fortress) . Also, DWARF THERAPIST! but since you don't have that, just assign migrants as soon as they arrive -- not when you're not busy with something else. If it's a full time job, then turn off hauling. Use nicknames so you can keep track of who is assigned to what instead of just guessing based on what profession the game thinks they should have.
I assign anyone that is a full time hauler or non-time-sensitive-profession to also do masonry and restrict my mason's shop to only allow my "real" mason to use it. This makes building walls and such much faster. You could also do that with mechanics, glass makers, carpenters, whatever.
I insist on 3x3 rooms, tho I will readily admit it is much more than necessary, but I also try to assign metal furniture and such when I can -- which is also much more than necessary. Success is clad in opulence. If you put a few platinum statues in a public room, you shouldn't have any happiness problems. Since the stones update, importing ores is potentially much more productive than mining them in the case of rare ores like platinum. If you can't afford them, then you obviously don't do cooking... Ask the liason for them.