tcbcats.

In my short experience with PICs (or any MCU) I've found the following. Trust nobody, specially any high level compiler. As Melanie said, read the datasheets and take them to heart. See, the most current information will come from the manufacturer (most of the times), and the compilers will play catch-up with any errata. So just because of this I learned to initialize everything I need. Understand, PBP is great - heck it saves tons of time but it initializes the PIC to what somebody thinks it is the most widely used configuration (the manufacturer has a lot to do with this many times). Do you consider yourself among the most widely use group? The beauty about MCUs is that you can use them for thousands of applications, really the limit is set by the users imagination. So how do you define the most widely used configuration. You can't, unless you buy thousands (maybe 100k's) to establish yourself the most widely used config.

Enough rambling, the point (to make it short) is to know all the configurations and which ones you need and when. Look at the PBP configuration files and study them. Then initialize the PIC on power-up to do what you want (and nothing else). Understand that, if there is a feature that you don't understand but you surely don't need leave it out. Even if you think it may not affect you good old Murphy says it will.

Good luck.