pluggin overkill/

Yeah, there are alot of plugins out there, but I think to find out what's right for you, you have to look at what your trying to accomplish with your blog and use only what you need.

well, my blogs are niche blogs and I am docking my content there. I want to build authority in that niche and have my blog as its "centre"

So, I would imagine these are some options, but again, I just want to bundle a set of pluggins so I can use them for all my blogs
some I look at, are
WP Popular Posts: http://bloggingdiary.com/wordpress-popular-posts It's a sidebar widget.

StatPress Reload - Shows real time stats about your blog: Dodge this! » WP Plugins

WP Captcha-Free: http://wordpresssupplies.com/wordpre...s/captcha-free
MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer -
Reveal IDs for Wordpress Admin -
"Featured Content Gallery"
"Pretty Links" -
Wordpress Automatic Upgrade -
All in * SEO plug in:
WordPress › All in One SEO Pack WordPress Plugins

Feedburner plug in:
WordPress › FD Feedburner Plugin WordPress Plugins

Google Analytics for Wordpress plug in:
WordPress › Google Analytics for WordPress WordPress Plugins

Google Sitemap Generator plug in:
Google (XML) Sitemaps Generator for WordPress

Redirection plug in:
WordPress › Redirection WordPress Plugins

Subscribe to Comments plug in:
WordPress › Subscribe to Comments WordPress Plugins

What Would Seth Godin Do plug in:
WordPress › What Would Seth Godin Do WordPress Plugins

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade plug in:
WordPress › Wordpress Automatic upgrade WordPress Plugins

WP DB backup plug in:
WordPress › WP-DB-Backup WordPress Plugins

WP Security Scan plug in:
WordPress › WP Security Scan WordPress Plugins

WP Super Cache plug in:
WordPress › WP Super Cache WordPress Plugins

WP Short Stat plug in:
wp-shortstat ? WordPress Plugin Repository

Akismet plug in:
Stop Comment Spam and Trackback Spam Akismet

DiggThis plug in:
Digg This - Wordpress Plugin Aviran’s Place - The Technology Hangout

Odiogo Listen Button plug in: (to have your blog post in audio form)
http://www.odiogo.com/download/wordp...ton_latest.php


Comment Approved Notifier
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...oved-notifier/

Comment Prompt
Comment Prompt/Reminder • Tim Nash "stuff" Blog

Subscribe To Comments
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...e-to-comments/

Thank Me Later
WordPress › Thank Me Later « WordPress Plugins

WpAweber
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/...e-to-comments/

Intense Debate
IntenseDebate - Features

Ultimate Footer Ad - NOT FREE!
Ultimate Footer Ad™ - UltimateFooterAd.com


WP Onlywire Multisubmit Plugin:
Internal Link Building Plugin:
WP_BlogNetworking:
LinkingPress:
Re-Tweet Button Plugin.

Twitter Tweet/Retweet Button - TweetMeme



Sociable Plugin.

Sociable - Social Bookmarking for WordPress - Yoast - Tweaking Websites

Popularity Contest Plugin.

WordPress › Popularity Contest WordPress Plugins



GD Star Rating Plugin.

GD Star Rating|A WordPress Rating System




Exclude Pages from Navigation
Exec-PHP
FollowMe
Insights
IntenseDebate
Yet Another http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress

Related Posts Plugi
Not Crucial but Awesome!
Traffic Getting SEO PluginTM Free Version - Offers Soo much value
WP Auto Tagger - Quickest way to pull Tags from your post
TinyMCE Advanced - This ads several features into your WYSIWYG screen, you can quickly change links to no follow etc.
Page Links To - Allows you to create pages within your blog then forward them to another site or affiliate product.
1. OZh’ Admin Drop Down Menu

4. Lets talk about tags for a minute – Simple Tags specifically. I must admit, I don’t have much of a clue about tagging.


7. Wordpress.com Stats

10. Broken Link Checker is really handy.
12. TinyMCE Advanced

I see a lot of things in your list that really aren't necessary. For example, why do you need a plugin to install a Google analytics code? Just copy and paste it into the appropriate template file.

If you have a specific reason to install a plugin (i.e. "I want it because it does X") then go ahead and install. IMO, if you can't answer that, you don't need it.

I used to use four basic pluggins, all in one seo, image friendly, gocodes and google site map and it seemed to work well.

but I read the posts on this forum and it seems that may not be enough

Correct me if I'm wrong, but won't all these extras soar your load time/site access? I was having trouble on one blog that took almost 10 seconds to load completely. I disabled a large number of my plugins, leaving only the basics and my site loaded quicker than the blink of an eye.

You're gonna want to whittle that list down to the bare minimum if you ask me - if not just for a speedy site access time, then also because all that extra stuff can cause security issues and/or have flaws and conflicts that would take forever to trace.

Well, All in one seo plugin was for optimization, and the image friendly allowed me to use alternate text for images etc gocodes cleaned up my permalinks and sitemap allowed me to ping my sitemap.

I don't profess to be a blog expert, but I want to use blogs as a docking station for my articles, and I want to use the articles posted on my blog to rank for my chosen kws.

I see people say they need this and they need that and they are doing niche blogs so I wonder "am I missing something"

I'd agree with All in One SEO and the sitemap plugin. Alt text you can do right in WordPress, and you can make simple redirects using php or html in your cPanel.

I don't profess to be an expert, either, but it is true that the more plugins you have the slower your site will load, and the more risk you have of running up against a conflict - either between plugins, or between a plugin and a theme. You can also run into trouble if you become dependent on a plugin.

Imagine the disaster you would face if you built a huge authority site full of redirects that rely on gocodes and the developers stop supporting it. It would continue to work for a while, for sure. Maybe even forever. But it might stop working next time you upgrade your WordPress install. Then what will you do?

Plugins are great, and I would never say don't use them. But I would also never say you have to have this xx number of plugins on every site you build, or even the same plugins on every site.

as I review the types of plugins, I guess one question does come to mine and that is .........Are there pluggins that make things easier? Are there plugins that automate things.

Ex.. Rss, bookmarking and other social plugins would benifit me right?