Slightly extreme but do people change? Or should we tar people with the same brush because this is how they once behaved?
If a guy has hit his last six girlfriends I don't think there's a magical woman who is going to be so special that he's not going to hit her. If it was one girlfriend that he had some kind of really bad mojo with years and years ago and hasn't laid his hand on a woman in anger ever since, then that might be a possibility. Generally speaking, I haven't seen too many people change all that much. It does happen, but it's extremely rare.
If they are raging drunk every weekend as long as I've known them, I'm going to expect them to be raging drunk every weekend until they've stopped doing that for a couple of years and I'm going to be aware that they have a fairly high likelihood of falling off the wagon if the going gets tough.
There is no probably about it .. I don't have a list. I take each situation as it comes, weigh up the pros and cons as ultimately i have the choice if i want to stay in the relationship.
That's way more risk than I, personally would want to take with my life. It's not rocket science to analyze probabilities and come up with likely outcomes. I don't have to learn everything by experience (ie, the hard way).
I don't think it's too big a deal if other people do that as long as they don't put other people in bad situations because of it. Generally, though, kids get put through all kinds of crap because their parents won't use a little foresight.
But most women here did write on their list superficial stuff.
And most of them didn't put superficial stuff in their Must Haves or Deal Breakers -- unless they had had previous bad experiences with certain behaviors.
Thank you

You validated my point in that people can hold such strong views but when the right person comes along, we care/love them with their flaws and all.
Actually, it depends on the flaw. Whether or not a man is balding is one thing. Whether or not he hits women and drinks his whole paycheck is another thing entirely.
There were several points during my relationship with my husband where I was watching very closely to see what he would do. If he had made a deal-breaking choice, I would have ended it.
For example -- his mother was attempting to micro-manage our wedding. If he had caved into her and allowed her to do it, I probably would have called it off. I did not want a three person marriage and would rather be single than have had one.
I really, really doubt anyone (that is reasonably mature and intelligent) is going to let some little superficial thing be a deal breaker unless they have a really good reason for it, regardless of what they may think they may do.