flash actionscript: What is the best all-round canvas size when authoring a swi for a web browser?
by this I mean best for authoring without scrollbars. I know a chap whose
screen res is 800x600 and who has every single toolbar displayed in IE, leaving
around 400pixels in height free. For crying out loud.

I once sat with a bloke who uses Courier New set at 36pt as his default
browser font. Ouch. I sat there transfixed, not believing what I was looking
at; to this day I have no recollection of our conversation, so stunned was I.

I've used 780x410, 800x600, 770x540 and I'm going nutsoid trying to find the
best compromise; whatever size I use, distortion creeps in if accompanied with
an "exactfit" value, especially if the height and Width values are set at 100%.

Beats me.

What are you guys using?

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personally avoid scaling, especially filling up user window.
more and more really high resolution monitors out there,
the larger the screen the more CPU it sucks...

Don't follow the exact screen size like 800x600 as it is never the
browser ratio, must consider the browser chromes.

I will design something within that size or slightly larger and use the
around margin to incorporate graphics as part of the design.

Sometimes even smaller than that and centralized. Depends on amount
of content.