I was mid typing when the other thread got locked, in the effort to avoid some of the problems in another thread I'll only say this is what seems to work for me and my crew;

What works for me:

I'm going to shift topic here slightly as it's a possibility to discuss GMing philosophy which is one of my favorite RPG topics as it's more or less universal where as player philosophy can vary a lot from game to game.

Now separating all functions of scenario design, which is a major bit of the GM experience a GM is first and foremost a leader, good or ill, their a leader for the table. Now as far as I am concerned there is only one good style of leadership those who lead by example. A good leader takes the counsel of their subordinates but ultimately accepts that the responsibility is theirs alone. A good leader doesn't play favorites, just rewards performance in the hope that it fosters further performance. They are the soul of courtesy and integrity and and it matches their actions accordingly.

Why is the GM the final authority: Compartmentalization and respect. In order for a gaming scenario to be fun there has to be a certain amount of hidden element if players have full knowledge and control there's no uncertainty, situations without uncertainty are boring in my experience. The GM has to come up with that uncertainty so they have to have a high degree of control, even if it's somethign as simple as saying "This bad guy or group of bad guys can do somethign special snow flake that no one else can do without studying their methodology." Sometimes that's just required to make things work. Further it's just needed to arbitrate when players are doing something otuside the strict rules or translating their actions back into strict rules. I tell my players over and over again, don't tell me what you roll, tell me what you want to do and I'll tell you what you roll, although in many cases it's pretty straight forward.

I've written houserules on my own, and as part of a group.

when working as a group, we had arguments about almost every single thing. Some players resisted change or fought against perceived power creep, while others found everything too restrictive and kept wanting more, more, more. Compromises were reached, but when during playtesting it turned out a rule didn't work well, changing it ran afoul of those compromises; people felt cheated if the compromised-upon rule was changed because it wasn't working well. The emotional investment of everyone got in the way or iteratively improving things until they did what they should.

While working "on my own", I was able to implement a set of changes as a coherent package, then see what side effects it had, fix those, and so on. It's an iterative process, because any change tends to affect some other mechanic in unexpected ways. However, the final result was a streamlined and more balanced system, with some options added for play and some annoying problems removed.
This wasn't pure despotism from my GM spot though; while I made the decisions, I did seek advice and perspectives from my players; if they found something working badly, I'd look at it and see if it could be better. But it was a way easier and ultimately less argumentative way to get the job done.

My table philosophy can be summed up as:

"Every person at the table should aim, by the description of his characters actions and dialogue, to entertain the *other* players, not himself. If everyone in the (eg) 5 person group does this, each player will be rewarded with 4 times the entertainment that they put in."

Beyond that, its all arbitrary, really. There are a couple of provisios, such as ensuring that the style of entertainment fits the genre that the group has chosen (two very similar characters in Shadowrun and Tales from the Floating Vagabond should be expected to provide quite different genres of entertainment) and most (but not all) groups find it more entertaining if their character is constrained by the mechanic limits of the system, giving them a fair playing field for comparison with each other.

But the GM is of course not constrained by that and as long as he is aiming to entertain the group, not himself, and understands what the players consider fun in this particular RPG, he doesn't really need any constraints at all.

Show the players a carrot, put some obstacles in their way, make sure they don't trip over the rules, and then sit back and let them tell you a story.

This may not be exactly what you were looking for, but when I've GM'ed (mostly other systems, still fairly new to shadowrun) I always found these rules to be useful for making a game go well. I'm going to include gratuitous examples-

0. Have fun and make sure everyone else does too.

1. There is no right way to solve a problem and frequently the players' solution is way cooler than what I would have thought of anyway.
This is the one I frequently find new GM's I've played with have difficulty accepting. Whatever solution I thought of when I designed the scenario is not going to be the one that the players pick and as long as their solution is reasonable and they have the skills to pull if off, cool. When you start saying, well you should have done this!, then you're on a power trip. Sometimes I don't even think of solutions for challenges and I have yet to be disappointed by what players come up with. I also appreciate this as a player, since I like to think outside the box.

2. If the players have invested a lot of time (real time, not game time) into something then it needs to be important or at least interesting. They are trying to tell you what they want to do.
I have had entire plots that evolved because the players were really interested in some obscure bit of description I gave. Nothing is worse for a group of players than to spend hours on something and have it just be a meaningless boring dead end. It should at least be a dead end with a talking moose head and a cup of hot chocolate.
The second favorite NPC of a group I ran for 3 years was originally described as ". . . an old drunk is staring at an empty bottle in the corner. . . " My first impulse when they started asking questions was to be like, "He's just window dressing! Move on.", but after we spent an hour of the session figuring out drinking games that could be played in game with the drunk in the corner and dice rules for them and they had established that the old guy had a family and a granddaughter with magic ability, he wasn't going anywhere. Their favorite NPC was his granddaughter, who only existed because they asked if he had any family in the area.

3. Everyone needs a time to shine.
I think every good GM knows this. I think making sure everyone is optimized to the same level is essential to this and finding ways to balance the game when people are not. And remember, some people shine in failure.

4. Make them feel like there is a real threat and remember failure is sometimes an option (though usually not the first).
If they think they are close to failure, it makes victory so much sweeter. I was always amazed how much people loved the Butch Cassidy and Sun Dance Kid ending to a campaign.

5. Deal with that guy, before everyone else does.
I've fortunately only ever had two players that were more interested in making everyone else miserable than having fun.

6. Play fast and loose with the rules.
5 minutes of digging through a rulebook is too long. If I don't know the rule (rare in any system that I will run a game in), make something up.

7. A lot of players would rather have something cool than functional.
I use to worry a lot about making sure that everyone was getting a balance of equipment and try to make sure equipment/payment was in line with what everyone needed. Then I had players fighting over the pair of superman glasses and the blues brother's shades that I put in as a gag, (they were glasses that when you wore them made people not recognize you even though they did not change your appearance and sunglasses that went really well with a black suit and made you crave fried chicken and coke).

8. Build NPC's using a two number approach.
This was for my sanity and time. Pick a high number that you use for all the things the NPC should be good at, and a low number that you use for all the things that the NPC should be bad at. As long as you know what reasonable numbers are, this works 95% of the time.

Only say 'No' when it's really really necessary, be prepared to say 'Yes, but...' then make something up.

If it feels like it might improve the story, enrich the game and entertain, go with it.

Maintain the illusion that the characters live in the world, rather than the world revolving around the characters.

Rules are a tool to keep the story moving, not a club to beat players with.

Keep notes.....lots of notes. A campaign log based on my notes is the most useful GM tool I have.

If you're not enjoying it, then they definitely aren't, so if you're feeling hassled and not in the mood, go to the pub together instead (or watch a movie, or whatever. Y'know!).