On the other hand, maybe I shouldn't worry too much about those needs anymore. After 8 years in this fort, the worst stress I have is zero. I have invasions turned off, but there's been a few fights here and there with wildlife, even with a humanoid typed weasel man. I see them have negative thoughts about seeing dead bodies, but it does not appear to be as strong as it used to be.
I was trying to come up with an easy way to fulfill military related needs because I couldn't see any other reason why some dwarves were stuck at stress level zero and never get higher than that. On one hand, I have several dwarves stuck at stress zero with distracting thoughts about not being able to fight/practice martial arts. On the other hand, one of my 'ecstatic' dwarves with a stress level near -99999 is distracted due to unmet needs, including several related to military and fighting. I guess this jives with the research in the original thread about how unmet needs don't strongly correlate to high stress.
I'd call the latest changes a big success if my worst dwarf is stuck at stress level 0, 'fine'.
By the way, FantasticDorf, have you experimented lately with larger meeting areas? You did some research in earlier versions where you concluded that the best way to get dwarves to socialize was to use very small meeting areas to force them to interact with each other. My experience in the latest version is that this is no longer necessary, although it can help. I have a large, 15 tile wide circular tavern, and I see groups of dwarves shuffling around together to socialize, recite, etc. They appear to be more capable of seeking out each other.