This paper provides an account of my research experience with ideotype traits, including discussion of challenges and opportunities afforded by ideotype breeding. Research findings are presented for two ideotype traits, multiple awn and stomatal frequency, that appear to afford little opportunity for making field gains, and for four traits (short stature, kernel number, kernel weight and leaf angle) that show good promise. A barley ideotype consisting of 14 traits is presented, as well as reasons for choosing the specified phenotypes. The proposed ideotype has large stems, leaves, and heads, and hence is a large competitive plant having morpho-symmetry. This ideotype is contrasted with Donald's wheat ideotype, which lacks morpho-symmetry and is intended to be a weak competitor with its neighbors. Reasons are given for postulating ideotypes for each crop/ecological area, as well as alternative models within each ecological area, and for substantially increasing the breeding effort devoted to ideotype traits.