-snip-
Then I looked at my last two suggestions which were basic improvements to the game that were shot down because it is removing "features" that just bogged the game down in needless tedium.
What were these suggestions, out of curiosity?
One was removing Boogeymen, which yeah is just my opinion but the counter arguments usually boiled down to "You can win against them you know?" and "Your just doing it because you are a stupid idiot wimp". Almost no one argued that they weren't as much of an obstacle or annoyance as I was making them out to be.
But the other was being able to cross rivers in travel mode.
In advanced world generation, just set the number of Bogeymen types to 0. First problem solved.
For the second, a decent running start will allow you to jump most rivers.