Most of the time this happens, it's something that's no rush--like opening a Way when they're not under any real pressure, so even if I was going to roll it out, there's nothing stopping the players from dividing up the rolls to something super easy to succeed at anyway.

I strongly oppose this and anything like this (which is sort of half your list). If I want to, I can just drop a fridge and say "You are dead, because I said so". I've actually had things like this happen to me, and no good GM I've come across does this. I'm all for a tough challenge, but this is not a challenge, this is one sided warfare. Do this as an ambush and it works. But "shot, you are dead" doesn't only kill the character, it kills the story. Every game I had with GMs that employed this method was filled with game stopping paranoia by the players towards the GM.

Throwing something against the players that's stronger than they are is easy. Throwing something that the players will be able to beat marginally and with a big price to pay and that they feel good about beating, that's the art of creating the opposition. All you said about creating them intelligent and things like that belong to that. There are some hero/villain tropes that can and should be invoked here, I think. The overconfident villain, for example.

Tropes are your friend. Tropes are tropes for a reason, it's because they work. That doesn't mean you have to shovel tropes into your game just because you like them. But if you break it down, there is only a finite number of things that can happen. They can have a lot of different colors, but under the hood, they are all the same. That means whether or not you are using tropes willingly, you are going to use them nonetheless. Knowing what tropes you use and knowing what tropes your players use in their characters can help you identify what your game is and can be about. It can show you what kind of tropes can work well with others, when it would fit to invert a trope and so on. This is basically craftsmanship for writers that is a great tool in the GM's toolbox as well.
Where I agree with fantazero is, that tropes become stale, when you use the same one over and over again.

Rule of Cool:
If you think an action is too cool to fail, don't roll. Otherwise, one of three things will happen:
1) the player succeeds and all is well
2) the player fails but you decide the action is too cool to let it go. Basically 1), but it leaves a bad taste in your mouth.
3) the player fails and the cool action is lost
Really only 1) is what I am looking for, so why bother with the rest?
Now it's important to notice that cool =/= powerful. Sure it is cool if the hero strikes down the big bad with one stroke, but that's something he'll still have to roll for. But making a cool move to get close or tinkering a cool contraption or anything that will help in a cool way can be done without much rolling. Or, in fact, the heroic sacrifice can be done without rolling or counting any numbers (just mentioning this, because it just happened in my game).

Something's happening offstage.
Basically, what some of you already said about NPCs and their plans, wishes, families and such. NPCs have plans, and they are going to go through with them. I address this by roughly playing things out offstage. The players don't see what's happening, and I usually don't roll, but something is happening and that's going to affect the story. I don't keep a strict timeframe here, things are happening at the pace of the plot. If the players are going to stop something from happening, it means they'll arrive at a critical moment to do so. But it also means that they won't be at the other two places where something else is happening.

Sometimes fudging dice rolls needs to happen,....

So i picked weapons with the understanding it can defend against other physical attacks, as well being my main attacking skill. But recently, my gm decided to nix that by saying i can ONLY use weapons to defend against other weapons. I can't use it to defend against fangs or claws or even fists. I have to dodge those with athletics. Which i think is pretty unfair. Is this unreasonable? Did I miss something in the rules? Or am i just being that guy who feels treated unfairly because my character is being nerfed?

I'd like to hear some input from the board.

EDIT: Before he nerfed Weapons block for me, i took the Stunt Riposte, which i could use to pretty good effect, but which is now pretty much useless as we fight monsters the majority of the time.

They are working at something called "Paranet Papers", which from the previews seems to be both expanding the setting a bit in the form of letters from various Paranetters around the Dresdenverse; aswell as updating the setting to the post-changes world. I'm unsure exactly where in the current book timeline these Paranet Papers will be, but the previews feels like they are at least between Changes and Cold Days.