I used to shoot mainly in aperture priority (Av) mode but as I'm gaining in confidence I am finding that I mainly use full manual mode. I like that fact that I'm telling the camera what to do, not the other way around...
Being the control freak that I am, I'm also learning to manually set white balance to suit each scene. I bought an
expodisc some time ago and I swear by it. It saves so much time in POST and I find I'm rarely adjusting the WB later, and if so, only very minor tweaks.