I was just now asked by @VinThomas which WordPress plugins I always use. With 140 characters being too limiting, and my thought of “I love lists like this!” here we have it:

• Pods CMS/PodsUI
• Attachments
• Bad Behavior (since Akismet is now “commercial”)
• Debug Bar & Debug Bar Console
• Google Analytics for WordPress
• Gravity Forms
• Members
• W3 Total Cache
• WordPress SEO

These are the plugins in my personal framework that always get activated with each client site. It goes without saying that there are more I have in mind when certain situations arise, but this is my go-to set.