The VideoLAN Forums

1. Nothing wrong with that

2. but I was wondering if there any other options / settings for the startup announcement. For example, "ARTIST - TITLE" or something with literal text "ARTIST - ALBUM - TITLE (YEAR)"

3. I did learn by experimenting that there seems be some rules, but I couldn't find an explanation of the rules in the documentation

It seems to be a 'two part' label based on metadata , i.e. A - B

a. If TITLE not empty, then A = TITLE, otherwise A = FILENAME
b. IF ARTIST not empty, then B = ARTIST, otherwise B = blank

Not a biggie, but might be handy or at least something in the documentation

2. Tools -> Preferences -> Show settings: ALL -> Input codecs
Then on the right panel scroll down to "Change title according to current media" and set it to whatever you want (hover the text box with mouse to see the available fields)
Once done, save, exit and restart VLC.

3. Not that I know.