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Coming from the perspective of a small, performance-oriented rack, an important consideration is : where are the your hands going to be and where are the cables? They had better not be the same place.

For my two-row setup this means that modules with the patch points at the top should be in the lower row, and modules with patch points at the bottom should be in the upper row, installing the module upside down if necessary/tolerable. Modules with the patch points along one edge (like the classic Doepfers) ... well they are a pain. This does tend to create an illegible mass of cables between the rows but the controls are usually not obstructed.

My rack has been hacked by a previous owner to have some horizontally oriented 4hp spaces above and below the rows. While this seems useful I still haven't figured out what are ergonomically acceptable ways of using it -- actually patching something in there would require cables across the controls of the adjacent row (or else very long cables) and the lip of the case makes getting fingers in there a bit tight.

I don't have the space to leave the modular set up permanently, which implies a very brutal approach to patching : one patch, one recording, pull the cables and put it away, usually the same night.