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I think most people play to win when the game is new. That's how I played when I first got Rimworld. The task was to build a spaceship and escape the planet, so that's what my focus was. After completing the initial goal, I now play it more as a simulation and building game. I build different designs and in different biomes, trying out various things and just watch the pawns go about their lives.

in my opinion this is already implemented with the "wearing tattered apparel" debuff

That only affects the pawn itself, it doesn't change others' opinion of them. Although I suppose it could be reworked to do that?

Fleeing pawns move faster than normal, actually giving them a chance to escape, assuming they can get to safety in time. It's a dice roll either way, as pawns set to attack will get one or two shots off at most. I prefer flee, as it usually gives the pawn a head start that may allow you to guide them to safety in time.

Didn't exotic merchants use to sell them for a very high price? Is that feature gone?

How about +50% plant cutting speed, +2 melee? Seems fairly balanced, as plant cutting isn't really a high priority job most of the time, and melee is not the most desired combat skill.

It's especially problematic with maps that have a lot of rocks or swamp, as these can completely cut off the center of the map from grass growth once the first winter has passed.

More comfortable beds help with patient moods.  Patients can get bad mood debuffs when stuck healing in bed for a long time, so its generally good to make them as comfortable as possible even if it doesn't directly help them build immunity or heal faster.

It's kind of a double-edged sword. The comfort provides a permanent (as long as they're in bed) mood bonus which is great, but the increased rest effectiveness means they spend more time awake, losing joy. It's pretty easy to fix though, you just put a TV in the hospital for the patients to watch, as it's the only joy activity that can be performed in a bed (I don't think lovin' counts as joy?).

Eating and sleeping when suffering negative effects (tired, hungry) take priority over any job, even firefighting set to 1. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's experienced a whole group of pawns stubbornly having a picnic while the colony burns down around them in the aftermath of a battle. You can't really change this, but you can minimize the effects by giving your doctors a nearby table to use, keep multiple doctors on staggered schedules or use drugs to keep them going beyond their normal limits. Bionics also help by reducing the time spent doctoring, so each patient takes up less time.

If you have a supply of medicine (even herbal), you don't really need to have your super-surgeon do all of the doctoring. Might as well prepare for the inevitable day where you'll have to replace him.

Okay, now do it on ice sheet. 

This happens because harvesting takes priority over sowing. If a tree in a growing zone is fully grown, it is recognized as a finished crop and prioritized. Growers only chop down growing trees if they're in their way when they try to plant.

It's a tough balance, too much player involvement and you end up getting stressed, making mistakes because you can't babysit the AI constanly. Too little, and you're just watching a computer simulation play out.
I feel that Rimworld is currently in the "too much" category, although only slightly. Rimworld tends to distract me a lot more than other games, often taking up huge chunks of time because there's always some small thing I need to attend to or monitor. That suggests to me that the game is asking a bit too much of the player once you have a decent-sized colony.

With that said, the "personal touch" required is what bonds you to your pawns, which is a major part of the small-scale strategy/tower defense experience with meticulous tracking of injuries, mental conditions and relationships.
You may sigh in frustration every time bob walls himself into a corner because godlike construction skill apparently isn't a replacement for common sense, but you're going to miss those moment when bob takes a mortar shell to the face and you have to make the choice between leaving him on the ground to bleed out while his friends watch, or euthanizing him later because of a ruined spine.
Those moments don't mean anything if you have no memories of your pawns, and you won't have any memories if you never need to check what they're doing, in a scenario where the AI is capable of playing the game on its own.

I think the reason for this could be that they're performing a medicine job and not a hauling job when rescuing. Or rescuing may not be a job type at all, in which case anyone can do it.

One condition: The job description has to be: "Administer pants" (or other clothing item) :p

I still don't understand the reason for the initial change. My constructor(s) are ALWAYS busy, like 24/7. God forbid they have any useful skills besides construction, because they will probably never have time to train them. So stonecutting usually ends up being done by someone who's bad at construction, slowing down production considerably.

I suspect that in the end, you will fall back to either trapped corridors or some sort of killbox. It's usually either a choice between meta-gaming or exploitative tactics. Of the two, I find the latter to be less disruptive to the experience. Using the terrain to your advantage is military tactics 101, there's no reason your pawns wouldn't know that even if they are telephone sanitisers and diplomats.