Digital Proportions - A Strawberry Singh Challenge

I hadn't done Berry's digits challenge in prior years so her new digits challenge is a fresh subject for me. I've learned a lot from Berry's blog on this subject and am happy to take part. It certainly has me thinking about my shape.

I got the free avatar ruler from the marketplace and was surprised that it registered me as 6'7" tall. According to the edit window in the SL viewer I was 5.95 feet, quite a difference. I'm 5'9" in real life and have no desire for Dolly to be short in Second Life.  I read the very informative blog by Penny Patton which explained the disparity to me. I'm still left in a quandary, though, because Second Life in general is scaled more to the larger proportions.  I like that my feet touch the ground in most chairs and don't want to be significantly smaller than the men of SL. At least I understand now why some female avatars are so short, though I haven't seen many male avis following suit.

I kept Dolly's original shape (made by me) for a long time with only a few adjustments until mesh and standard sizing appeared on the scene. At that point Dolly fit most closely into a medium size, so I adjusted my avi shape to the medium digits. Dolly always had small breasts (about 33), and the breasts of the medium avi were much larger than my preference. So eventually I took Dolly's standard size figure down to a small. I miss the little bit of belly, butt, body fat and muscle, but not being very busty in real life, I felt uncomfortable with bodacious (to me) boobs.

My shape was copybotted a few months ago and is available for sale on the marketplace. I fumed about it for about a week, then forgot it. Recently I had an ah ha! moment and modified my face slightly so the avi sold on the marketplace is no longer me. Also while I was at it, I reduced slightly the length of my torso and legs. Changing to a small had left me feeling they looked too long (they're still too long, maybe, but I do things by degrees when I decide to make changes).

Proportions Challenge Questions:

1. Do you try and keep your avatar’s body proportionate and similar to the “average” proportions pictured in Berry's post? – I was more interested in creating an avi that had the proportions I had in my 20's and 30's, with a few fantasy improvements. Are real life models "average" proportions? No, they have long necks, long legs and long torsos. I didn't want to look emaciated like some models, but there's a difference between slender and emaciated.
2. What do you dislike the most about the SL avatar mesh? – Now that hands and feet have a nice fix thanks to Siddean Munro of SLink and other builders, my biggest annoyances are the way shadows fall on the face in harsh windlights and the sharp bumpy edges of the av. More subtle expressions and better teeth would be nice, too.
3. Does it bother you when you see other avatars that are not proportionate at all? – I am sometimes amused to see blocky bodybuilders with teensy heads, and boobilicious girls who would fall over in real life, but I'm not bothered by it.
4. Even though this is a virtual world and people can be anything they want to be, do you feel when they are in human form, they should try to keep their proportions close to average? Not at all. Average is another word for boring. That said, if clothes, houses, furniture and poses don't fit your shape, don't whine to me.