When you say " I'll try to merge some of these settings into Django by making them the new default or the default for new projects created with the start project command", you mean you are a Django core developer and you plan to make them as part of the Django project?
If you are, YES PLEASE! :D I would love to have those settings as my default configuration, because the majority of my projects are tiny to small to between-small-and-medium size, therefore SQLite is more than enough for me.
I'm not a Django core dev, but I have managed to get my changes merged into Django already (the transaction_mode setting in 5.1 was my contribution).
Carlton does seem to be onboard with my idea[0], so I'm optimistic that we can make it happen. Comments like yours will help me make my case so thank you for that!
Django is a critical project, and I am sure your contributions are of high quality. But making it too easy to get new contributions in, somehow raises other concerns around the project governance.
Don't get me wrong, the PR review is still rigorous and can take weeks. But everybody I interacted with during the process was very supportive and helpful, so the overall experience was great!
If you are, YES PLEASE! :D I would love to have those settings as my default configuration, because the majority of my projects are tiny to small to between-small-and-medium size, therefore SQLite is more than enough for me.