By the way, by "Job Priorities", what exactly do we mean, are we talking about:
Labor priorities: "If theres no metalwork to do, then you may as well haul rocks until something comes up"
or
Task priorities: "I need that lever pulled *now*, even if theres a goblin gnawing on your liver!"
I'd actually REALLY like to have both. But you're right, those are two separate issues.
Could we have them separated in the main poll, when it gets set up?
In which case...I think I'd have to put my vote in for Task Priorities instead of Job priorities. It'd be more convenient to have dwarves manage their time better, but it can be critical to the fort to have certain tasks done NOW.
Although that can be a hard one. For Task Priorities, we need to be able to set ANY task to be a "someone do this now or bad stuff happens!" sort of thing. Anything from a hauling task "The door is stuck open and goblins are coming, someone move that rock NOW so we can lock it!", to a digging task "Urist is drowning! Someone dig a ramp in the side of the pool so he can get out!".
I'm not really sure how you'd manage that properly. Some tasks, such as pulling a lever or moving a rock should probably be done by the dwarf closest to the item in question. Others, like the digging, need a miner with a pick. So I guess you'd need to pick the closest appropriate dwarf.
Not sure how hard that is for Toady to code in, but it could be a life saver for a lot of dwarves and forts.