Whenever I open a new (web) project in VS 2010 the default build configuration is set to "Active (Debug)". I read somewhere that if I upload my project like this to the server it would have a slight affect on performance (is this true?), so I have to manually go to properties and change it in the build tab to release. Is there any way to tell VS 2010 to open every new project in 'release' configuration?
You would be better off performing a Publish operation when you want to deploy, as this will not only build in Release (or any configuration you wish), but also will only produce the files that are required by the application. You can publish to a local folder to then upload to a remote server.