Mike
I set all the palettes I need and use frequently to single hot keys, tap at start up and I'm off. It seems you've got to work within the parameters of what your given.
There are various oddities though; SEO box opens but won't close with a hot key; quick layers comes up somewhere other than where I "left" it.
In particular I like the small and effective ones like quick layers and Orbit's align tool, which sit nicely out of the way and can stay open all of the time, say unlike the navigator or layers settings......
jeff white
w3d design
AC 23 Solo US / current build & library
Windoze 10 Pro 64
HP ZBook 17 G4
Intel Zeon 3.0
Twin 2GB SSD
32 GB memory
http://w3d-design.com