Is this really the most efficient way?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoBhh7MLa5g
I know I can adjust the Layout Options to expand spacing per a certain percentage of fullness, but that does not seem to prevent the more than occasional need to make these kinds of adjustments.
Oh blimey, no don’t waste your time doing this!!
In an orchestral layout where you always want pages to justify vertically, you can set the threshold for vertical justification as low as you like (say, 20% to be safe) to make sure all systems fill the height of the page automatically.
Edit: as Ben says, remember that Dorico adapts the spacing to the music; you don’t need to fix the layout first. Once you fill in this system, I bet it would justify vertically anyway.
Firstly, don’t do any layout until you’ve got all the notes in.
Secondly: use the “Ideal Gaps” options in Layout Options to set the gaps between staves.
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I was only using the blank score as a demonstration. I would never do any layout until all the information is in place! 
But there are situations in which a single Ideal Gaps setting or justification percentage still leaves some systems in need of lots of manual adjustment. For example, if I’m writing for strings with choir, and some passages have multiple divisi, there are some systems that are small enough to fit two per page and others that need a full page. For the full page systems, I don’t want it justified with too much space between staves, since that requires manually respacing those staves. On the other hand, if I set the justification to keep things spaced more reasonably, some pages end up with two systems spaced as tightly as possible with a large gap between them. This then requires expanding the spacing on those staves. Even in scores where every page is a single system there are still often times when I need to make lots of staff adjustments due to manual repositioning of things like playing techniques (whose manual adjustments are not automatically recalculated in the staff spacing).
While I do manage to get most systems automatically close to my ideal, there are nonetheless some that still require expansion from time to time. That’s what my initial question is about: If I do have to expand the spacing, do I have to do it in the way demonstrated in the video? There’s no other way to accomplish that, right?
Not if you set the second vertical justification value, the one for only systems and not the staves within them, to something nice and high (e.g. 95% or higher). When this second value is really high, Dorico only ever skips justifying staves within systems on really, very, extremely full pages.
For a visual comparison of what’s happening when both types of justification are happening vs just systems justifying, see the bottom of this page:
I’d also recommend in general slightly reducing the minimum gaps between things like text items and the staff, but slightly increasing their minimum gaps to other items. Playing techniques conversely could sit a fraction further from the staff.
Another way to expand staves is to change the height of the music frame, such that the staves/systems justify within the music frame. E.g. in choral scores where most pages have two systems but heavily divided pages can only fit one, I tend to set up a custom page template that’s a duplicate of the Default, but where the music frame has a lower top and higher bottom; this allows the system to justify within a shorter height, adding extra space at the top and bottom.
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Ah, this makes so much more sense! Thank you for explaining those justification features—I didn’t realize exactly how they would play into this situation. Many, many thanks.
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Here’s my handy guide to Vertical Justification. It’s worth keeping the “Ideal Gaps” to the smallest value that you want, on the assumption that the justification is going to make them larger.
The vast majority of projects have very little, if any, manual system spacing adjustments.
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@benwiggy Brilliant! I’ll be printing this page out for easy reference.