Well, first and foremost a pit has to be clean. Without a clean and orderly pit, having one is functionally useless. Every tool has a place, and is kept in it obsessively.
Secondly is the layout. The robot needs to be somewhere when it's in the pit when we're working on it such that we can have 3 or 4 people on it at once (depending.) As a result it's almost always dead center.
Thirdly is our tool location. Keeping them at the back wall worked for 1257 in 2016, with a shelf off to the side for the sake of storage of things we don't need frequently.
On that note are the 4th and 5th items being laptop charger & battery charger. Without either of these, the DS can't work and the robot won't move. IIRC we purchased a spare charger just in-case the main charger for our DS breaks, and we have a backup battery charger (4 at once vs 1 at once) just in case.
Overall, a pit just has to be clean, orderly, and functional. Anything else is supplementary. Though a mess in this photo, it does show 1257's 2016 pit all-right. (It was during finals at MAR DCMP, so it was clearly deserted. I should have watched that match is something I've said far too much...) The photo goes against everything I said, but there are toolboxes that were dragged to right beside the field.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEWBmF6sOFe/