SPOOKS
Avoid expensive low-spoke-count wheels. Wheelmaker sponsors treat them as advertising expenditure, and racers treat them as consumables. If a wheelmaker wants to give you free low spoke count wheels, free maintenance, and replacement when they go wonky then go for it.

Avoid medium price low-spoke-count wheels - they may be fine for featherweights, but are made for folk who want to look like racers and can afford to replace their wheels regularly.

Avoid cheap low-spoke-count wheels like Shimano WH-500, they are for fools, fairies, and for bikes which don't get ridden.

32 spokes on the front and 36 on the rear is ideal for commuting. Stocking only one rim instead of two saves money at several points in the value chain, but the result is either (theoretically) a front wheel with too much drag and weight, or (this is the compromise they choose in practise) a weak rear wheel.

Even with 32/36 the rear will still be where most problems occur. The front wheel is much less stressed because it does not have the cassette messing up the angle and thus tension balance of the spokes. Also it doesn't have your torso sitting almost on top of it.

If you want to go for aerodynamics and light weight do it on the front. The aerodynamic effect is about double on the front and it is easier to find, pay for, and swap a racy front wheel.

TYRES
A skinnier tyre needs higher pressure, and has a higher percentage increase in pressure for a given big bump so puts more stress on the rim, spokes, bearings, frame and your body. Therefore, keep skinny tyres up front if you must have them.

25c rear, 23c front allows one spare tube to fit both easily. I don't like running tubes stretched because I imagine they might deflate faster when pinholed, and be more likely to tear at the valve or along the fold line.

For damaged wheels which require badly uneven tension to true I fit even bigger tyres, hoping the lower pressure will allow the wheel to stay usable for longer. 28c fits fine on most rims & bikes, and I want to try a 32c rear on a wide rim just for fun. If the tyre is so fat it needs deflating to go through the brake blocks, that is OK on the rear but a nuisance if you need to pull the front wheel for locking or to put the bike in a car.

RIMS
For time triallers or triathletes rim weight is so unimportant that they happily run aero wheels, which in the old days were a great deal heavier.

Rim weight is very important for close racing, for instant acceleration to stay in the slipstream of someone trying to bolt away. A body operating near maximum output becomes highly non-linear and even a tiny increase in output power requires a big increase in energy consumed.

Even the most vigorous truck-chasing commuter is more like a time trialler than a criterium rider though, so heavy rims are fine. Mavic Open Pros are nice if you can afford them, but I have the very heavy Rigida (not Weinmann) DP-18 rims. They stay true. Whatever they hit they destroy.