The shortlist you put there are a good example of what works across the board and I am not suprised by the description tag as Google pretty much ignores it these days other then to display a description on results and not worry about the content in it. It is even pretty much the same for keywords these days as they are to easy to spam.

Be wary as these search engines are clever and things like white text on white background will be found and you will be punished, but I think you know these things as you already know the terminology ‘White Hat’ ;)

I plan to down the track do a lil article on SEF/SEO techniques that I use in sites that I have seen some great success from in the past, but again these are what I would call the basics still.