I have largely stopped removing my rings and necklace; they'd go into either the little bowl (to be placed in a bin under my coat) or into a pocket of my laptop bag previously. The deal was that some airports' had their WTMD sensitivity set so high that these things--my class ring in particular--were setting them off. DAB was notorious for this; once, the grommets in my ball cap set off their WTMD (that was pre-TSA, but my class ring set off TSA-run WTMDs at smaller airports all the time)

Bart or perhaps eyecue did mention once that the sensitivity is supposed to be standardized and not easily changed by the operators, I think, but I know some stations seemed to crank theirs up higher than others. (Conversely, my Rockports and their steel shank set off the WTMD at many airports, but not a few others--such as CLT--that I tried walking through with them)