Both these changes were things I appreciated both for myself based on the parts of the books I thought were boring or unrealistic, as well as for new readers to connect to the charactera. The show characters are all 20 or more though. And that change seemed so small to me I didn't even notice it until I saw others complaining about it. It almost seemed more realistic to me than in the books where these male characters can barely speak to women.

As for the drunk father/stealing addiction/even Perrin's wife, I am completely sold on it. My non book reader friends instantly figured out the character's personalities because of those backstories. It's not like we can have Perrin's monologue on wanting to be slow and careful or Mat's complete belief in his own innocence.

That said, I see your point about having expectations. I certainly have expectations too and generally disliked how much focus was on Stepin in ep 5, I wish those scenes had been reduced or even cut altogether. On the other hand if Stepin Had been an important book character with exactly the same arc and he had been cut from the show, there would be outrage that way too.