Please have wallets (at least Windows) ready and at least one pool set up before launch (and not like 15 minutes before so everyone is scrambling and it becomes a train wreck).
I know no one likes premining but I would like to recommend mining a few blocks beforehand so that it is tested. Maybe set the reward for first X blocks be zero or really small values.
Really the biggest things to me though are transparency, not rushing to meet a deadline, and frequent edits to first post that explain the current state of the coin. See the ronpaulcoin as an example.
Thanks Nick. We want to have these wallets tested and ready well before launch. I understand the frustration when things don't work or go right at launch and its not good for anybody to be involved in that. In terms of premining it is not something we want to do. We will need to pay for things such as devs, website hosting and we will need to decide how we fund these initial setup costs, we were thinking donations. We also want to actively drive marketing for this coin so it can raise itself above the rest. That is something we want to discuss amongst the community and see what people would considered fair. I've taken your advice about editing the first post and thanks for the ronpaulcoin example. Your suggestions are much appreciated.