Plug ins = Not the factory pre sets.   Just open the default and set it up,  then Save it.    
VST= Yes but a lot of them I then edit and save.    
 
So I do use pre sets but they are all my own creations at this point now. I will name them after the song or Gender they were used in so I know what the style they are, especially drums.  
 
I even have the TTS-1 all customized into a couple of "bands" , like a folk, country,blues. 

All of the above here, too, though the conventional wisdom on the internet seems to be that presets should only be used as a starting point. I don't really buy that. My impression is that advice comes from pride, but I also think it's meant to discourage people from becoming too reliant on presets.

When I am learning about a vst for the first few times,  I will try different presets to get a better understanding of its capabilities.    Then I figure out a go to preset and tweek it.   I haven't found the need to create my own - one and done so to speak. 

Pretty much the same as everyone else.
 
No preset has ever seemed to work straight out of the box so some tweaking is always employed.
 
Dynamics plugs i usually build from scratch - each of the controls are totally dependent on the source material and none of that is ever the same.
 
I tend to re-use Fx chains again & again, but the individual modules will nearly always require adjusting.

I'm pretty much like everyone else.
Sometimes I use a preset as is.
Most of the time I have to tweak them.
If the above two doesn't work them I make my own.

togo
All of the above here, too, though the conventional wisdom on the internet seems to be that presets should only be used as a starting point. I don't really buy that. My impression is that advice comes from pride, but I also think it's meant to discourage people from becoming too reliant on presets.

I think it is mainly a warning because source material can be so wildly different that a preset made for one source will often not be the optimum setting for another. That doesn't mean it can't work. But if someone created, say, a "kick drum" EQ preset editing out some 400Hz and giving it some extra boom around 60Hz and some slap around 2500Hz that might be a decent starting point, but my kick might not be so boxy around 400, or my mic placement might already catch a lot of 2500Hz slap, etc.
This can be quite different for, say, a chorus preset, or even "balls to the wall" drum room compression. As long as you're roughly aware of why the settings are made the way they are, it's perfectly fine to use a preset as is, although logic dictates by that point you would need it less.

I normally have a bunch of presets as a starting point and then tweak if I need to.  I also then create a preset from the new settings ready for the next time. 

I use the presets as a starting block, then tweak.

Jerry

im erratic. sometimes I will start with a preset and customize it to preference, other times I wont use a preset at all.

as-is
 
 
lazy I guess