I saw an old thread, from 2007, about how to automatically set the default alarm time for new events, but the process described does not seem to work. What is the process for doing this now?

Welcome to the forum, Syberchick70.

I don't know what say the old thread you mention. But now, these are the steps:
- Right click and click to create a new event
- Leave all the fields empty and only select what you want to be as default (e.g. the alarm time)
- When you finished, click on Template and then on Save. Write the name you want.
- Once the template was created, click again on Template and then on Select Default Template. Select yours, and OK. Finally click on Cancel to avoid create an empty event.

Now, any time you want to add a new event, the template will be loaded.