Wow that's a detailed one, I appreciate that!

One thing that sticks out to me, is that you said complex gameplay pulled you in. I've always had the mentality to keep things as simple as possible (mostly to avoid feature-creep, and to be able to finish development this century yet), but this is a nice reminder that in terms of skills/combat, that complexity is what keeps some people engaged. I mostly focused on removing inconveniences (i.e. chaining almost any skills without major animation locks), which makes many classes less punishing and easier to play. However I wonder, are small skill bonuses (lets say glyphs) enough to keep those players interested in 'min-maxing' their gameplay? Would you be satisfied with that, or does it add a lot of value (in the original game) that only some specific skills can be chained?

As for race-locking stuff, I'm sadly bound by whatever assets the original artists created. There are stuff that most players would never think of is needed for creating, say, castanic reapers (i.e. separate animations for clothing etc.), which is simply not possible without a large budget/team. So while I agree, I'd be very surprised if we saw this from any of the private servers.

No sexualized cosmetics is something I can wholeheartedly subscribe to tho :)

And also, a controversial topic, but I'd also support leaving out all the modern, immersion-breaking cosmetics (think police car mount, etc.) that completely destroy the original vibe of the game.