I've looked at your page but it seems that you already found the solution.
Simply remove the "none" variant from your option product and select the default value that you want for the characteristic of the option.
I want the customer to be required to choose a bolt pattern. They can't submit the order unless they make that selection. I want the default value of bolt pattern to be "Select..." and they MUST select before they can submit.
I find it strange that this is not easier to do.
Also, I'm trying to add the select... value. It shows in characteristics, but not on the product page. Why not?
In that case, it's not a characteristic or an option that you should use.
You want to create a custom field of the table "item" via the menu Display>Custom fields (Business edition only) and in the custom field, you can enter a "select" value as first choice with an empty value field and make the field as required so that it will behave exactly like you're describing.
I didn't understand your question regarding the "select value". Could you describe more precisely what you want to do ? Maybe with some screenshots ?
