Workers spawn them as soon as they're needed (for now!), so it's not something you ever have to worry about.
I've been getting crashes to desktop after the update. Are there crash dumps that might live somewhere I could submit?
Why not have the standing desk require a log instead of a plank? lol It's not like people in a carpenter's workshop would measure out and plan an entire building but then not know how to make a desk.
On this issue I don't think it's necessary to make it optional. The reason being that once you have a work desk built you can start ordering planks right away, and get the standing desk made in short order. An issue would only arise if work didn't get started if no one was at the desk.
Floating commodities can still happen when there isn't a stockpile and the worker just puts them on the ground outside. Also observed colonists seem to grow obsessed with moving stockpile items around into newly freed spaces, like some sort of OCD defrag.