Haha... No Way! Only difference is mine it's the same without capitalization.

I leave ARCHIVE in all caps because most of my project names are all lowercase, and that keep it from popping up in auto-tab completion. Color me lazy. :)

I do almost the same thing: ~/projects and ~/projects/old

I also have ~/tmp, which is where I put things I'm unlikely to need more than once or twice. Keeps my desktop clear and my projects folder uncluttered.

I use ~/proj/${SOME_PROJECT}/

Tarballs go in ~/proj/v/