Rezerkity and stuff

I think it'd be nice if there was a world gen option for biome 'size' so to speak. But overall I like that things are spread out, it makes travel worth it, and it makes building forward bases and pathways worth it. The distance between resources adds purpose to the things you do in the game, as opposed to just being convenient and easy to get done. I do always turn story distance down to 25% though, because a multiple day hike for something that'll probably kill me isn't very fun.

The biggest part about progression is that at the start you can't do much. Restarting a world won't make your buildings better, since there's not exactly limited space. Perhaps instead of nuking your worlds due to unhappiness about your buildings, try using the resources you have access to and building away from your main base? You could even make little forward bases for travel, and connect them with paths. If it doesn't look pretty, then you can keep trying! My biggest advice is to look at real pictures of architecture you like the look of, and go into Creative mode to try and build them there. After that, you can experiment with block availability. Like what can be a cheap substitute for this block early on? I can't afford stone, so what if I use daub? If I can't gather those resources, maybe just packed dirt will even look similar? Building is very much a knowledge check about what blocks are available to you, and how you can place and position them to your liking. Chiselling also gives you such enormous variety and freedom. So, try sticking to one world, and experiment in creative mode, it helps a lot with the anxiety.

It's best to wait for a Stable release because the Unstable is, well, unstable! It's entirely possible a new unstable patch could completely delete world files for no reason. If you want to play Unstable, best practice is to learn how to backup your saves and do it regularly, and not to get too attached. Perhaps play in creative so you can enjoy messing around with the new features, then when Stable releases, you can play for real in survival. I really like exploring new blocks for building, myself.

Clothing as a whole is a very undercooked part of the game right now that I'd like to see expansion on too. I think it'd be easier to balance things if players realistically had more choices than grass clothing, fur/hide clothing, or more expensive story-specific things. I've survived multiple winters and never really needed more than some common sense and fur clothing. All I can think of beyond adding more, is giving more reason to use different clothing. Like grass clothes not working if you're wet, or furs also giving a tiny bit of armour, etc. I really hope we get a large expansion on this in the future, alongside weaving and rugmaking.

My favourite track is Daylight - it's always felt like the main theme of the game for me. It has the right mood to encapsulate how it feels coming out of your first winter, seeing everything thaw, and seeing all the animals returning. Especially after a temporal storm, it feels like fresh air.

I can confirm that on 1.22.0-rc2 I've found trader huts without traders inside of them, multiple times, on a world generated on this version specifically.