Back in the old school days when guys like T-Bear and I had kewl things like scum bags and eraser shields, I used standard dimensioning all the time and I've since carried it over to my cadd days now.
Offset from object should ALWAYS be 1/16", extention length past line is 1/16", arrowheads, 1/8", text 1/8". First dimension line should be 1/2" away from the object with each line after that being 3/8" on top of that.. Don't make me draw a picture, you KNOW what I mean..
Hmm, what else.. Oh yeah, back in my day, we used a 7mm pencil for the text and a 3 or 5 for the actual lines themselves. so the text would be bolder and show up better.
Now we didn't have all these fancy schmancy dimvars and setvars and higgledy piggledy settings and WE LIKED IT!!
Ohhh.. sorry, lost my train of thought..