How do I change the default configurations for the node options? I want to change some default configurations for the node options; for example, the authoring information has 'Authored by' field which is defaulting to auto-complete authors. I want to change this to a drop down instead. 

Is there a module that can do this? I learned that editing a module is not advisable, and I cannot find modules that can override default configurations anywhere.
Unfortunately in that case, I guess that you should do your own module and use hook_form_alter()