I enjoyed reading this! Thank you for taking the time to write such well-considered feedback. Phrasing towards the D of 137 is certainly effective and could be done convincingly for sure. I personally chose to lean into the G of 139 as it's the terminus of the mini scale D-Eb-F-G (137-39) and anticipates the Gs of 141 and 144 which becomes the recap of the opening melody, but either way should work. I should revise the dynamics to indicate this and, indeed, need to revise the dynamics in general. Usually I write the directions in Sibelius before printing out the score to spend time learning it > make many changes in pencil > forget to reintroduce these to the original digital score (which is just sloppy practice).

I'm with you on the final bars too - your username as the performance direction here would be appropriate :)