The current method of adding and editing connections is too...geeky...for my tastes. It would be great if there was a connection "wizard" that took the user through the entire process of setting up new connections. A well-built wizard would address almost every common issue that probably has to be continually addressed on this forum - particularly the "feature requests" involving keep-alive and reconnecting drive you nuts.
I don't see why it can't just be a wizard instead of the current dialog. People make wizards for stuff like this all the time. So, when should the wizard guide the user through? Always. Everything the current dialog does, a wizard will probably do better.