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[Malenfant]

I'd like to have less control over my dwarves, and leave much of the micro management up to their AI (CPU cycles be damned). Based on the personality and temperament of the dwarf and the urgency of the jobs I assign I'd like them to pick the jobs they want to do themselves. If a job is requested and there is no specialist to fill it then a good dwarf with a "can do" attitude might step up to the task.

Perhaps this could trigger with the economy mode along with a feedback system from the dwarves. Lets say there is a demand for fine clothing, a clothier who is currently chopping wood would complain that he would rather makes clothes if a clothier workshop was available. I mine out a workshop area, build the clothier workshop and he buys it off the fortress and changes his job. Now lacking a woodcutter I raise the woodcutter wage slightly and leave it up to the market to work out who takes the job (perhaps a new immigrant woodcutter currently hauling food from the farms).

I know this sounds dangerously chaotic but DF for me is all about the richness of the simulation and been the all seeing, all knowing puppet master diminishes that somewhat. Free the dwarves from the shackles of our micromanagement I say, let them lead independent lives guided rather than ruled by our actions  

[Funkadelic Jive Turkey]

You naughty boy, you! That is the name, no? Sorry had to get that out of the way.

Totally would second your idea but there's a slight tick; the way the game is currently coded, jobs pick dwarves, not the other way around. But in the spirit of what your saying, I have a tendency to rename the dwarves that distinguish themselves in a fort as "Legend" or "FreeDwarf", give them every job available and let them do whatever they will. If we could set job priorities in-game I think that'd be a major step toward what you (and I) want. It still wouldn't give dwarves autonomy proper but it could take some burden off of constantly switching labor preferences.

[Alfador]

Agreed, but with the provision that we get the ability to prioritize jobs! If all seven dwarves would rather spend all year hauling trash than setting up a farm, should we let them starve? No! Option to force a dwarf to take a priority task, at the expense of an unhappy thought. "was forced by necessity to do a disliked task" or somesuch.

Also, if an item is tasked for (say) hauling but there aren't enough dwarves with hauling labor turned on and so there's nobody ACTUALLY HAULING it (or going to haul it) then they should be freed up for higher priority tasks... like, say, EATING. "There's a plump helmet right next to you and you're starving! Why aren't you eating it?" "Because Urist Slowfoot is about to haul it... it's 42nd on his list of 'Things to haul this century.'"