CRS defaults to WGS 84 on opening a project without OTF

Question

In QGIS 2.18.15, I open a project and my component shapefiles have migrated to the west coast of Africa. Here's what's leading up to this:

1. I've disabled OTF on startup since there are well-documented geometry calculation issues that arise with OTF enabled.
2. My default projection is set to EPSG 102710 (NAD 1983 State Plane New Hampshire US Feet). All component shapefiles are projected to this as well.
3. When trying to calculate acreage for various polygons, these calculations are wonky, thus:
   • The "output preview" for the expression $area / 43560 correctly displays acreage, and yet:
   • The calculated column in the attribute table returns a value that is 1/10.7639 of the actual value. There are 10.7639 square feet in a square meter.
4. When I add a new vector layer, the "selected CRS" always displays as WGS 84 and I must manually select EPSG 102710, even though this is set to the default.

So it seems QGIS is defaulting to WGS 84 and metric measurements. If I turn OTF off, my shapefiles return from the African Atlantic to their rightful places in New Hampshire.

I do have several QuickmapServices layers included in my project.

Happy to provide other info if needed.

Answer 1

What have you set with your bullet 2). Is it the default CRS for new projects or the CRS for new layers?