I generally agree with all of the tips except for using Pinax. I like the idea of Pinax, and I think it makes a great sample app if you want to see what good Django code looks like. It's maintained by top notch developers and showcases a lot of excellent reusable apps and good Django design patterns, but when it comes down to customizing a Pinax app to create something you want, it's a nightmare. The internal apps are too tightly coupled, and it takes longer to take out all the stuff you don't want than to just roll your own apps from scratch.
Very valid point.One thing which i would like to mention is the idea is really powerfull and pinaxproject has just started.I think it really takes quite an amount of time for the project to get maturity.
I think still we need to put more thought on the below questions...........
1.How can we easily plug/unplug the django apps?
2.How easily can we customize a single app effectively?
More pinax discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=764566