Definitely turn recalc off, or at least set it to question you.
Also turn follow road off.
I find the persistent beeps annoying, so I have them switched off. I have distance to next and distance to destination at the top of the mapping screen, the latter just because I want to know how much torture is left overall
I fill the data pages with stuff, so I can flip to them if I want to know more stuff.
The height recording is flakey, as Greenback has said.
gpxx on BikeHike is marvellous. Especially when you want to force a bit on it, like cutting across the main road in Malmesbury - you just click the next point in the OS map window rather than the GoogleMap one. The only thing I've not sorted with it is getting controls into it, but I don't care as I use my brain for that bit.
Because of the time it takes to process a route I often split it into two; I also do this if a route crosses back over itself.