Ask HN: Steps for securing and configuring a new VPS?

I have been reading a lot about the necessary steps to take to prepare a secure and comfortable VPS LAMP site hosting environment from linode or digitalocean.

Google is full of articles and posts with recommended checklists but wondering if HN had a list or a resource a majority would agree on...

Some of the initial findings were the following:

1) Set up login with SSH keys for convenience

2) Update everything with sudo apt-get update

3) Change SSH port to 4437 or something like that

4) Install HTOP instead of TOP

5) Configure PHP to run as CGI with CGIWRAP (for security)

-- I am sure there are a dozen more steps we all take after provisioning a server - anybody have further suggestions or posts with good lists?

(EDIT: for markup)