Thanks for posting, Dimerall!
I run with a lot of options off as well. I also use stick figures. For PC names, I usually include first names for players, and recently pet names (because pets are people too). For pets, when an owner has /taunt on, it's also nice to know who the pet owner is.
Generally though, I would recommend people toggle settings off and on, and find a comfortable selection that works to both reduce lag, but not affect their overall enjoyment visually. I run with bare minimum spell effects, just enough to see raid emote/mechanic rings/effects. I find it cuts down on the visual noise, and makes it easier to see targets in general. EQ has some pretty crazy spell particles that can be really distracting -- maybe it's changed in recent years though, I haven't had them on in a long time.
It helps if everyone shrinks on raids as well, and hides their familiar. For familiar hiding, there's an option somewhere in the UI to bring it up and manage familiar's or something.
Also, a big thing for lag, which some folks may not have toggled OFF, is the in-game
Journal (ALT-J, if I recall). With this on, it can cause a lot of lag/stuttering as it records lore information (which happens on raids too, when mobs spawn and spew out lore messages).
My eqlog is coming up on 5 GB, atm, /duck!
I rotate the log once in a while. But I run other programs like the parsing server, which isolates raid events. Also another parser that sections off daily logs. So it's more organized on that front. The only time I have to go into the main eqlog though, is if I forget to load one parser, or I need to pull some assigns from the logs; which are not included in the raid event logs (because those are captured from when the event starts to when the event finishes, and assigns usually go out before that).
I would recommend players archive (ZIP) their logs, and save them. ZIP compression can reduce logs down to very tiny sizes, because text files compress really well. So they won't take up much space that way for storage.
Also, as you mentioned, you never know when you need to go back and dig something out of your logs, so it's good to have them!
Later!
