"To Dos" aren't available in reports or scheduling tools where my PMs live & communicate. We don't yet see where Adaptive project management fits into our world, so To Dos will probably not become a viable alternative until this feature become standard for all projects. Regardless, even with To Dos in the new UX PMs will still want to create their tasks and mark them as they please, will they not? In the new UX, Effort based calculation method has an even worse user experience on tasks with no assignment: They can't even be marked complete:
I can think of a couple better User Experiences than providing users a drop down control that does nothing but frustrate them. Don't make them think! Simply let tasks without assignments be whatever the PM wants them to be even if the project is set to Effort % Calculation Method. 100% of 0 equals zero - these tasks do not mathematically interfere with the functional goal of Effort % Complete calculation.
I'll remain curious - is there some harm in tasks with no effort being marked 'Complete'?