One thing you may or may not already know is that you can view the individual items from the Z-stocks screen. Hit TAB and instead of seeing you have cat leather [6], dog leather [15] and giant eagle leather, it will show you all of them, the quality of each (for weapons, beds, etc) and whether that item is forbidden, set to be dumped or melted.
I use this to forbid masterwork beds when placing them in large bedrooms, or if I want to guide fey dwarves so they produce something really valuable (if they're running back with bronze bars, go to stocks and forbid all bars but platinum. It's an easy way to game the system and boost your fortress' worth).
You can expand most menus (for example, when placing furniture so your noble gets the masterwork and your peasant doesn't).
Also, for artifacts, I usually set up a small stockpile in the deepest part of my fortress and set it to accept furniture, furnished goods and armor, setting quality to artifact. Dwarves will automatically move the artifacts down there, rather than leaving that platinum earring worth more than your whole fortress put together lying on the floor in the clutter. It also helps prevent monkeys and thieves from getting them.
For seeds, if you have a small stockpile, like 4 squares or smaller, remember to check and see that max bin is set. I think it's 'q'->stockpile->'V' This will make sure you get 4 bins (or maybe it's barrels) to hold seeds, rather than a stockpile with 4 seeds. You could also make a quantum stockpile if you wanted to have them all in one space.