Thanks Trent - my standby altimeter stays on 1013 until the TL but given that 90% of the arrivals into Essendon start with "when ready, descend to 9000, QNH xxx" I'd rather not bust my clearance by being momentarily distracted when passing through 10,000 and having the cleared altitude warning go off as I pass through it (especially given the range of QNHs seen recently). So my practice is to set cleared ALT and QNH when clearance received so it's not lost or forgotten in the heat of the moment.
The gonkulators - yes - not really sure of the science and my bad that I just take what it says as gospel (and an irrelevance - power settings of 2200rpm/24.5" and fuel flow adjusted to control the TITs). I've been assured that the Auracle algorithim is pretty accurate but I don't know how it copes with LOP. Plus my fuel sensors are either no good or too sensitive as FF jumps around a bit during flight - 43.5 seemed about the average. Wouldn't need to be much higher to get the right % for 290HP (MCP) engines. The totaliser is usually pretty much right on the money.