Looks like I'll be taking a dip back in the SR pool while my ED game is on hiatus for me to refresh (circle 10 adepts are mighty!). Despite my misgivings I am going to be using SR4 since books are more readily available for it. I'm looking at 2 rules in particular to tweak the game and was hoping that some of you all had tried them in actual play:

1) Increased Thresholds: did you do 1 for 1? 1 for 3? Did you have dice pool bonuses reduce threshold and at what rate?
2) Getting rid of Defense rolls: this slows the game way down and I want to be rid of it. How did people handle this in their games?

Thanks for any help.