I'm taking over a SharePoint portal and noticed the previous developer used SharePoint Designer for all of the development whereas I use Visual Studio custom solutions/features for development.
NOTE: Site Publishing Features are enabled on a Team Site template for some web applications.
The issue I've noticed is the v4.master content type was changed from "Master Page" content type to "Page Layout" content type. This must have been done through the "Edit Properties" on the publishing site. When opening the site in SP Designer, the v4.master shows up in Page Layouts instead of Master Pages.
The v4.master also has the blue icon next to it meaning the page is customized and content is stored in the database which is causing performance issues. SharePoint is so slow that users are very frustrated. Also there are script tags in the masterpage pointing to jquery in the top level scripts directory. Personally, I would of created a delegate control for this instead of customizing the v4.master. NO Copy was made. (I totally dislike SP Designer, this tool gives too much power to inexperienced power users that like to put sharepoint developer on their resumes. I am definitely disabling SP Designer)
So, with all that said, what are the best practices or suggestions if any in fixing this issue?
What issues will this cause for future applications or site collections?
Should I develop and deploy a custom master as a feature then "Reset to Site Definition" on the v4.master?
Why does SharePoint allow users to change the Content Type on a Master Page to "Page Layout"? Why is this even an option, it doesn't even make sense?
