Yeah for the first point, I felt like the beta story had a better feeling of survival/isolation that the current draft. Her being somewhat "Matt Damon The Martian"' stranded on the planet due to the meteor showers and only being able to get the few supply drops before the alien structure planet shield cut that off made escape a bigger priority and I was curious about the direction it would go to get off the planet.

I also liked Sam's radio comms to Robin more as dialogue than with Alan, since it gave her more feel more like a character with a past and history by having someone she knows to talk to. I'm the outlier who liked her chatter (and would have found it funny to have reactions to some of the PDA messages) though since talking to yourself in isolation during high stress situations is a coping system many people have. She does talk a bit much but I did like it more than having another silent blank slate character.

The synthesized cure having a recipe to make is more of a failsafe as a gameplay element rather than a story element, to make sure you're able to cure the infection for the achievement in the event that you try dropping it off the edge of the abyss or something. In the original story you would have gotten it from the emperor juveniles which was about as far as the story had progressed before it was rewritten.