This may be old news to some of you, but I just came across a paper titled Simple Application Framework for VCL by DevExpress. DevExpress has some killer third-party products, including the QuantumGrid. They offer support on a variety of platforms and languages, including Delphi, Kylix, ActiveX, and .NET. Their components work very well, are well-designed, and add pizazz to your application. This paper covers some best practices for Delphi application development. However, if you're a .NET guy, they have a version of the paper for .NET, too.