You just can't have a workshop too far from the stockpiles it takes materials from. For instance, a carpenter's workshop doesn't need to be right next to the wood stockpile, but it won't function well if it's across the map from it. Workshops don't need to be near housing, since your busy dwarfs won't visit home very often. Nor do they need to be near food or booze. In all cases, though, they still shouldn't be across the map, or they won't function well.
Stockpiles for the product created at the workshop can be far away, since, ideally, you want the haulers to work separately from the creators. The closest thing to an exception I've found is for furniture. I usually make furniture on demand. When, say, a bed is done, I tend to want to place it immediately, but since a dwarf often gets a hauling job before I get to it, the bed can't be placed until it reaches the stockpile. Of course, you can just pause, forbid, unforbid, then build the item, but that's extra micromanagement. Stockpiles for trade goods should be close to the trade depot, because you just might find you have hundreds of individual, cheap trinkets to sell, and that can easily be a hauling disaster without proper placement.
Noise is not too big of a deal. If you can manage thoughts in other ways (nice furniture, legendary dining rooms), it's a non-issue. I hope this is adjusted in future versions.
Be very careful with multiple z-levels. Dwarfs chosen for jobs are picked based on closest straight line distance (either Euclidean or Manhattan distance), not shortest path distance. A dwarf that's standing directly above a workshop may have to travel a long distance to get to the only stairway down to it; that dwarf may be picked over one that's only ten steps away. A fix is to have many stairways between levels, or to not expand far horizontally, so dwarfs don't have to travel far to change z-levels.