Great post. We’re all here to discuss, learn and enjoy Dorico as well as notation practices from time to time.
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You are still very welcome here. 
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The optional nature of ottava clefs in many instruments is why Dorico originally treated ottava clefs as purely cosmetic: they didn’t affect the pitch of the notes.
The “transposition” is a property of the instrument itself, regardless of what clef is displayed.
There was a lengthy discussion about this with regard to the Tenor voice…
Dorico does now have options to “respect” ottava clefs in Notation Options. But as the guitar already transposes down, you don’t need to set this. You can also set the octave pitch of a given clef in the Properties panel. (NB: You need to add a ‘non-default’ clef to be able to modify it.)
Anyway, as said, you can use the ottava clef, or not: the choice is yours.
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I think this is actually an English or American peculiarity, because as a studied guitarist I have played a lot of French, German and Spanish literature and I would say 70% are with the 8va and also in my studies it was bad style not to write the 8va. But as there are simple solutions, it’s not a problem for me at all. The issue with the octaves has certainly existed since Dorico 2 (for example with the tenors) and you can find many old topics about it, but since Dorico 4 there have been no more problems with it and now with the instrument definition there are no more problems at all.
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That’s more in line with my experience. thank you for writing 
Unpopular opinion:
Once I have seen H. Zenders „Winterreise“ (concert score), after initial irritation, I was amazed by his use of octave clefs for octave transposing instruments.
I wish this would become the standard in the future, but a lot of time will probably have to pass.
(Obviously the use for tenor sax would be ridiculous… he surely would’ve never done it. there are much better ways, such as using bass clef)
I fail to see how it is useful at all to show the octave symbol. octave Transposing instruments are easy to read and transpose. If someone doesn’t know X is such an instrument then it’s on them.
On the other hand, even if we considered showing the symbol, why stop at transposed instruments at the octave? Why not show “2+”, “3+” “9+” above or below the clef for the other ones?
Because in a sounding score, having written the actual sounding pitches just satisfies some OCD in me. It’s also „backwards compatible“, as it looks and feels the same as the current standard.
Your other, obviously ridiculous and provoking question is self evident, but in case it’s not for you: every other transposing instrument already has an agreed-upon way to show their sounding pitches in non-transposing scores. Some, such as horns, even use multiple clefs, which may differ in part and score. Why do they do it? To avoid ledger lines, obviously, but still show the sounding clef.
Now if there was a standardized clef for below the F clef or above the G clef, that could be used. But alas, we have modified clefs, the best we could get, because sounding pitches in original clef would create an immense amount of ledger lines…
Now I don’t see it changing, nor am I opposing current practice… or even actively endorsing it in my scores. But a man can dream of a world, where a sounding score actually shows the sounding pitches. And then put it into the shelf, as transposing scores are anyhow superior…
My concern lies more on the part not wanting to see scores in concert pitch while the 8va transposing instruments are on actual real pitches for the public, specially without any indication that they are. Ligeti indicates on his Cello Concerto the contrabass is at concert pitch, which I still don’t like, but at least there’s a valid reason for it.
Whether you do actual concert pitch or not for yourself is fine by me. I just don’t want to see building ambiguity around.
I, for one, don’t believe in such a thing.
I, for one, don’t believe in such a thing.
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Sergei, Suppose you are conducting. You need to speak quickly and accurately to a saxes about a note in measure 67 or whatever. With a transposing score, you just look down and see that its a Gb in their part. Requires no mental gymnastics by either of you to speak to it. You don’t assume the ability to perfectly transpose every instrument on the fly. That they’ve got all those cool world instruments memorized, etc.
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Transposed scores for me too. The conductor should see what the player sees. The genres that seem to be exceptions are commercial studio dates and film music. I guess the thinking is that because the music was often just written and copied in the few days before, and will likely never be played again, the ability of the MD to quickly catch any mistakes or do any re-writes on the fly will save more studio time than with a transposed score. With these I always ask to confirm what they want, as I default to transposed scores for everything else.
And fewer ledger lines.
Jesper
I think you misunderstood what I meant. I don’t think transposing scores are superior, neither are the concert pitch ones. No one dares to give the conductor a concert pitch score, that’s a sure giveaway for the orchestra and the conductor to never play any more of one’s pieces. Concert pitch scores are rather useful for music analysis, for example.
In other words, they’re useful in different contexts.
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That’s very fair I think.