Your thoughts and opinions: The essentials. I'll throw something out to kick it off. To me not necessarily in order of importance; Outline, rail, bottom(ie. concave and V), fins and placement. What elements do you consider to be most important?
For anyboard those elements are all very important, that is like asking what is the most important part of a great pizza. Is it the dough, the sauce or the cheese? If any one sucks, so will the pizza. Fins and placement is going to be the most noticable and the easiest to adjust in a shape.
Rocker… and bottom contours. Easiest way to make a dog is with a whacked rocker.
Fins aside, the easiest thing for a shaper to botch is the rocker, most people know what a good outline looks like, not too many guys know what the rocker is on their boards at the tips, and a foot in. Plus the curve in the rocker is much more subtle than the curve in the outline so small changes make a huge difference.
What would you consider to be the leading edge of any surfboard? For me it’s the tucked under edge so I’ll list that as my number one priority, closely followed by rocker. Rocker also gets reflected in the rail bands as well so it has a fair amount of influence over many things.