How to configure Blender for 2D functions only? I'm trying to convince a colleague of mine to switch from AutoCAD LT to Blender for structural drafting purposes. Even though Blender was not originally designed for 2D operation, it has the advantages of A: being free (as opposed to $1000+) and, B: having a lot of potentially time-saving functionality (the loop-cut operation alone could probably cut 5% off of drafting time, not to mention the array/mirror modifiers, etc).

However, my friend does not need most of Blender's 3D functionality, since structural drafting is almost exclusively done in 2D. In the best case scenario, I could configure him a stripped-down copy of Blender with all the exclusively 3D operations and hotkeys hidden, as well as rendering/materials/physics/etc. At the very least, I would like to configure Blender so that it is locked into orthographic top-view. How would I go about accomplishing either of these?
You want to setup the layout the way you want and save it as his startup.blend.

By adjusting his preferences you can delete entries for changing orthographic/perspective, view front/top/right. As you probably know the shortcuts you want to disable you can search for the inputs by key-binding.

The far extreme is to compile a custom build for him, with this you can also remove menu entries for changing the view orthographic/perspective and even hide the window types menu so he can't accidentally change the 3dview to something else.

Or you can just teach him to use what he needs, and say just ignore all the other stuff that you don't need to use. I'm sure he can handle exploring other parts of blender if he feels adventurous and knows you to call when he gets lost.