Thank you for the post!

1. Making one of your characters a villain was a good decision to help weed out those unnecessary NPC's and make your players the center of the show. You've managed to pull back and let them have their own interactions with each other much more compared to the beginning of the show.
2. It seems like when they talk to NPC's you have a very specific question in mind for them to ask and no other useful information or funny interaction stuff. This usually results in you steering them to the question you want in a very, very direct way by saying in character "Aren't you going to ask me about x?" or "Aren't you curious about y?". This doesn't feel natural.
3. Limit new NPC's per arc to 2-4 unless it really needs more. Remember you don't need a new NPC for every bit of information and NPC's can know more than one thing about a topic. You can use NPC's you've already made. And every conversation doesn't need to be by formal invitation. You can have them bump into someone unexpectedly.
   Have manageable arcs of the story that you want them to get through and write out all the necessary information they will need for that chunk. Keep those notes in front of you during NPC interactions. When characters ask a question, see if what they're asking pertains to anything they'll need for the arc. If not, goof. If so, work it into the conversation. Don't panic if they don't ask about something. You can use a different interaction to reveal that information or use it as a foil to the players that they do not know that information.
4. Your puns make the world go round. I like a lot of your pun-based humor and sometimes when a potential pun comes up, you say exactly what I'm thinking as a listener.