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All of these are craftable. And I feel there is no "variety" in having the same thing duplicated with a slightly different icon. It adds nothing, and just clutters inventory and crafting menu.

Yes and no, while for now that may be largely the case - meaning that aside from RP or flavour reasons they have no actual gameplay difference.
It'd by quite easy (and I honestly suspect that this feature will make it into the game) to get them to develop 'tastes'.

Which means that some people will want a specific kind of dish or even be allergic to certain foods. Similar to how they already have the cannibalism trait I'd suspect to see vegan or vegetarian, allergies, someone that prefers spicy food and so on.
On top of that the mere desire for variety in meals even outright dependancy for variety.
The former resulting in a negative mood if there's only one type of food and potentially a positive if there's variety. The latter resulting in disease if certain nutritional elements are missing.

Personally I'd say that paving the way for such features would fit very well within Rimworld.
And while I agree that the game could do with a better way of processing and storying different meals - I wouldn't say that all it does is cause clutter.

Kinda surprised that with all this input there's no talk of why animals can't be trained to hunt.
Aren't dogs especially known for their use by hunters?

I suspect that some if not all of these have been suggested before. But here we go:

1 - Repair/reclaim items.
When crafting a piece of clothing, art or a weapon we already see how it gets transformed into this intermediary state.
How hard would it be to take an existing item and turn it into that intermediary state.
Then based on its durability and quality determine how much "material" it has left.

It would then be possible to either "add material" and patch it up or reclaim the material left in it and covert it into its raw form.
This would enable useless items obtained from raiders to be turned into something more useful outside of a marketable product.

2 - Merchant standards
We're already seeing how prices differ from trader to trader. But as far as I'm aware a trader will take an item regardless of its condition. Intertwined with the suggestion above, a merchant may simply refuse to take on any items below a certain quality level or durability level (and can you blame them?!).
In a similar fashion a slave trader would not be very enthused about taking on a cripple who has already been harvested for organs and is hanging on by a thread.

On the other hand an on-planet trader may be more desperate and be willing to take on items that a spacer would refuse.

3 - Local trade
I've seen this in mods but its apparently not part of the base game.
It shouldn't be too hard to provide a trade popup option when a group is visiting akin to how the com-station does it for a space ship? You'd simply have to approach the "trader" instead of the com-station to initiate the same trade sequence.
Art assets are optional.

It would also make the visits by locals far more logical. Right now they wander in, eat some food and leave again.

4 - Recruitment / retaliation
Why aren't their non-hostile ways to recruit people?
If you make an offer good enough, why would someone become angry?
I'd love to see more diplomatic options in the long run. But a friendly recruitment or someone joining you (chance based) after you saved their lives would be a great and easy to achieve start.

I'm imagining something like the visitors from a local tribe/colony get attacked or injured while on your map. You save them (which gives a reputation boost with that faction) and because the saved person is so grateful they decide to join your team instead (of their own volition and only a small chance based).
On the flipside, some factions may take offense if you refuse to patch up their injured (*perhaps only when you have enough available medicine*) which would result in a rep-hit.

The ability to repair or break down clothing (and perhaps other items) and then use some of the reclaimed material for either repairs or new creations/construction seems like an essential thing to have in a colony situation.

Perhaps add in some conditions like the item being "patched" that would either give it a lower max durability or faster decay rate depending on the skill used to patch it.
With the "perfect" result being as good as new. Only once a certain skill requirement is met.