Can I create a short score at startup for choral music with two staves, sopranos and altos on the top, with tenors and basses on the bottom, and also with voice names shown? The lack of this facility is a big disadvantage in choral composition.
Of course you can ! There are some videos explaining how you can use layouts, frames and so on to make exactly what you want, with the looks that you want. You shall explore the Youtube Dorico channel 
Yes, try assigning the ‘Choir (reduction)’ instrument to a player in Setup mode. Write the soprano part in the first upstem voice on the top staff, the alto part in the first downstem voice, and repeat as needed for the tenor and bass parts on the lower staff.
Thank you for that; but what I get is a two-stave layout labelled “Choir”; how do I get rid of that word and replace it with Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass correctly aligned with their appropriate staves?
I think that you cannot by now have two labels per staff, nor two lines for a label. This is a topic that had been discussed some time ago. This is something that will probably change “in due time”, but I do not think you missed anything there…
If you only want labels on the first system, then it’s not too onerous to add them using Shift+X text that you drag into place in Engrave mode: first, in Layout Options, on the Staves and Systems page, set the staff labels to ‘None’, and instead indent the first system of the flow by e.g. 8 spaces, which should give you enough room to put in your two manual staff labels. Then create your two Shift+X text items, switch into Engrave mode, and then drag them into place.
Thank you Daniel, that did the trick. However, I hope we will eventually get a short score to select in the Choral and Vocal section of the Hub!