dropdown selections: default values or no?

I have a client with a web app full of long forms. Many of the selection 
boxes have been set to no default as the client wants the user to 
'consciously' select a value. However it is also clear that in most of 
these cases there is an obvious default value that gets selected 80% of 
the time (80/20 rule).

Any opinions/thoughts on this? I always opt in favor of efficiency, but 
in this case the client wants to go the other direction....

thanks,

Anastasia

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