1. Is being able to issue orders to individual squad members essential / used often?
2. The same about selecting preferred squad members when configuring schedules.
3. The same about giving different orders for different months.
Any other things rarely used so that I can make military UI simpler?
I know I'm late but:
1: All the time, no need to send all ten of your legendary+5 speardorfs to dispatch a snatcher when the one closest will do
2: Again all the time. I always put the ten newest dorfs of the militia into border patrol until more recruits come. This serves a few purposes such as eliminating small threats (Oh, leprechauns/other easily killable but annoying critters, GIB IT) or delaying a strong opponent (Elephant! GIB i-*splat*)
3: Also all the time. I specialise all my workers, so once all the slots are filled its into border patrol. If I'm expecting migration I'll loosen the schedule to deal with the recruits or move veterans into border patrol to hopefully end the fight at the border.
TL;DR: Border patrol is great, and yes to all three
Anything rarely used to remove from Equip/Uniforms screens?
Call me Insane (haha, geddit) but I always assign everything individually to my militia/military. I like RP so I'l often have an 'honor guard' where an average gold mace isnt good enough, back to the forge. With the above border patrols I usually send two squads at a time, one melee, one ranged) so with recruits I loosen up and select just a general crossbow, although those with promising traits get put in an elitism-training squad. (I play MW, dont judge)
back on topic, I rarely use food/drink besides increasing both to max, maybe set them both to max by default and remove the option?
AMMO: THIS NEEDS TO BE SIMPLE. AS WELL AS FUNCTIONAL!