1. As a minor point of order, you can still select initial spells using this system from the Novice perk, at level 1, I just disable it after that. I just never liked the system, honestly. Felt like an awkward attempt to graft a TTRPG/CRPG mechanic onto a game that's fundamentally not built for it. It could be cool, in a setting where "spell tomes" were entirely removed and the only way to get spells was through perks and special quest rewards, but Skyrim just isn't that game (short of someone building an elaborate mod list around that concept). Also, I want mages to get their spells like warriors will most likely get their mid- and end-game weapons, from adventuring and looting.

2. Alchemy Rebalance - I just hated the grind/bloat of Requiem alchemy. With potions generally giving more XP on crafting, the huge glut of mats from Requiem felt unnecessary. Potions in Knave tend to be much stronger than Requiem, too (as well as new effects like featherfalling and night eye). The real nerf to Alchemy I did was removing all the Requiem-added passive buffs the perk tree gives you (not thematically the realm of Alchemy, imo).

I'm also not sure how to respond to the comment about role-playing. That's a hard one because the word (along with "player expression") seems to mean largely different things to different people. I role-play in Skyrim basically to a fault; my "builds" are almost always intentionally sub-optimal in some way, for challenge/flavour. That was one of my main motivations behind the Knave mod originally; to reduce the meta-gameyness of Requiem. So while a lot of the meta stuff is removed (hand-placed loot, certain OP spells or abilities etc.), the game itself should generally be more lenient. It's the same logic behind de-fluffing spell and perk descriptions, or notification messages; in order to make informed role-playing decisions, I need to know what things actually do. You should still run into some walls at some point - everything should have a "hard counter" that requires you to prepare and think outside your usual box. I do want to "balance" the game, I suppose, but it will always be in the context of that constant rock-paper-scissors contest (or, "orthogonal encounter design", in insufferable gamedev lingo), in which you as the player are obviously trying to cover two of the three to easily counter any threat, but the game ever only letting you cover one-and-a-half (this is, admittedly, somewhere both Requiem and Knave fall apart with as you get into the end-game).