My suggestions to authors of the programs:
1) A complete help and full functional demo
This is my experience gain through "blood and sweat". Only with the above shall someone who is interested enough 
to try the program will find out all its powers. Evaluator/user who tries won't have big tolerance over the difficulty
in finding out what the program can do and how it is suppose to be operated
2) Fav list and Recent list should be separated into 2 different menu.
In this case "Direct folder" is doing exactly what I am suggesting, unfortunately its method of bringing up Fav or History
list is not so easy when compare to "QuickFolder" or "Folder Express"
My suggestion:
e.g. Right-click file list area for FAV list
      Right-click win title line for Recent list
The point is do not force user to aim for a button or small icon in order to bring up Fav list.
3) Add extension / panel to OPEN/SAVE AS dialog.
"SpeedFolder" is the top scorer in this area. However, what it provides is still far from a smart use of the panel
Basically I find it excellent idea to fill the panel with FAV, but what about a mean to switch that between FAV and
Recent list? If this panel is used in this way, than accelerate key is critically important.  The look, size and position
of this panel should be user customizable.
"Direct folder" tries to add panel on top of dialog in order to display full path spec of current folder (and file info)
But the panel is not prompt to go with the dialog when drag. Also, the panel is too space consuming, it is a very bad
idea to have all drives shown in the panel for their free space and do not allow user to mod the panel.
While having a panel is a winning point of DF, but it is also the critical factor that make me uneasy to use the program
If one toggle off the info panel, many function that rely on it will be absent.
4) About Right-Click
For non-keyboard expert user, chances is mouse is always being held. Right-click file list area seems to be the best
access mehod for the FAV list, IMHO. Why not a double right-click to bring up pure FAV list without all the 
ordinary right-click menu options like "New", "Properties" and so on.
5) Auto-focusing
Few of the programs offer auto switch focus to "File name" or "File list" field when a dialog is up.
However, none of them does that correctly.
If "OPEN" dialog is up, focus is best set at "File list" field
If "SAVE AS" dialog is up, focus is best at "File name" field.
Yes we might want to overwrite an existing file when "Save as" but that should be rare compare to Save as
a new file name. No program offer diff focusing choices for diff kind of dialog being used.
6) Application driven
Fav list per appl which is triggered by diff method, otherwise the ordinary (common) FAV list will be up (which is for ALL)
(In this case, I don't like the idea of strictly FAV per appl + common section for ALL, very messy)
Def folder per appl
Def view mode per appl
Def sorting per appl (including order of sorting, ascending or descending)
Even diff Places bar per appl (am I too much)
7) 3rd party storage browser (like total commander and opus) should be supported. There is only 1 program does this. 
The point is, if one cares to buy a program to have very prompt access to folders, I doubt he/she will still stick
to windows explorer without looking for better alternative. However, majority of the authors cares only to support
windows explorer. I am not saying it is stupid to do so, but rarely appreciated, because, I dare to bet most of
their users are equiped with a better alternative - a 3rd party browser.
8) Few of the program are keen to show off by telling the free space on drive(s), but none try to tell anything about the folder
 being opened. E.g. what are the total size of files under current folder. How many files/sub-folders are there 
under current folder.