But in general functions shouldn't really be all that long anyway (if they are, break 'em up!). I kinda like declaring my variables all at the top — I think it looks nice & clean.

While the parent technically said "at the start of functions", at least C89 (I don't remember about K&R) allowed declarations at the start of any block. This is not incompatible with minimizing scope - just introduce more blocks. And in fact, introducing a block to bound the scope of a variable allows a smaller scope than simply declaring it halfway through a function, as you can also end it early.

Also, it acts as a declaration of intent and makes the data dependencies in a function more explicit.

If I declare a variable in the middle of a function, I am declaring intent that this variable shouldn't be used in the first half of the function – maybe the data it is supposed to hold cannot be available at that point.