>is it still chic to use a start program in your app?

Do you mean a launcher that runs before your app starts, does some sniffing about, perhaps some version updating/configuration tasks, and then fires the real app? I do, since my launcher normally does most of the version and update processing for me - I built it to have the smarts for sniffing and versioning things.

If you mean something for the developer to customize their development environment? ABSOLUTELY! I use that to load up tools that I use frequently, set up some OKLs that I use to haul my butt out of the fire, etc. If you go out to the FOx Wiki site, there's a good discussion on using STARTUP there; Erik Moore put up some neat stuff during the Study Group sessions on what he does to help gets his development environment set for him, as did Nancy Folsom. You might want to check the archives of those discussions from the Wiki as well.