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The easiest solution would be to decrease the price for plants in warmer areas and increase it in the cold areas.
This would also feel more realistic, since products should be less expansive where they are easier to produce.

Maybe we had bad luck. If not, drug-related illness happens far to often.
It's hard to believe and makes using drugs too unattractive.

How common are Events while for the Colony while other Pawns are travelling?
Are there none or are they less frequent? How should you Balance defense for the colony and for the caravan?

I enjoyed your Rimworld story. The style of writing, the Ideas, I like it. Thank you.

bunch of whiny babies

second this, sadly, with implementation of "joy" need and social stuff, game suddenly drop into "tamagotchi" management game, with top threat "mental health of already mentally ill colonists"

I really like colonists having feelings and memories. It adds a lot of flavor and "story" to the game and gives more incentive to do stuff (rather then just "build a bigger kill box").
Some moods and Breakdowns are a bit off, but the Moods are important and should stay.

All in all, they don't seem like crybabies to me. They endure a lot - and yes, sometimes small stuff can be the last straw.

Also I don't find managing emotions too difficult (Cassandra - tough). Did you try drug-managing?

Tamed Animals could be usefull fighters if they would be able to follow the Handler more closely (like real animals). But since they are always somewhere behind its (too) difficult to use them for strategic purposes.

a) The target location is only updated if they reach it, so more often then not they are walking in the wrong direction. Tamed animals shoud be more similar to regular pawns.
b) The animals are really slow. Why can't a group of dogs catch up with their handler or enimies. Faster animals would also help with reaching the enimy before getting shot.
c) Everything that PetFollow already integrates should be in the regular game.

There are other interesting ideas above, but I think those are the most basic & appealing.

[PetFollow]

I found animals (boars) in bigger numbers quite usefull, especially when attacking a Raid from behind (using map / colony layout).
But only before obtaining higher tech and using the Mod PetFollow to avoid insane micromanaging.
Two Ideas to make them more usefull:

1. (Some) animal-groups should defend their kind when attacked by Wildlife.
Wildlife attacks should be less frequent (why can those creepy wild animals open doors, anyway?)
2.(Untrained) Animals who do not fight should run away from grenades and gunfire - or freeze. Not graze, while they are slaughtered by raiders.
3. Ainmals who are "released" should always instantly run to the next (close) enemy and attack. Maybe give us some control over the direction they run in or the thing the attack.
4. Animals could be faster. A dog should outrun a normal raider.

Yes! Animals should not just stand around, sleep or graze while grenades are exploding next to them and everyone is shooting (at them).
They should fight, run or freeze.   
And Raiders should try to steal my livestock. It's a Western, it has to be in.

Your colonists are part of a futuristic game show, brainwashed to believe that they are "crashed" and mining compacted machinery makes sense.

Your enviroment is strictly controlled by "storytellers", who make exciting stuff happen whenever the viewers get bored.

All the events, all the cargo pods, mechanoids, trader ships, refusal to be picked up, all of these are due to rich people being bored.

I would strongly prefer to have more control about who joins my group. It would help me to inject more story in the game and have a colony i like (or like to dislike).
The colonists are the main characters of my story and I don't want them to feel totally ramdom.

Usually, important colony decisions are under player-control, everything else AI-controlled. Wanderers are a weird exception.

I know that there are several ways to get rid of unwanted pawns, but they are usually tedious and immersion breaking.
(Unless you play a group of casual slave trading sociopathic cannibals, but that shouldn't be the default option)

Something in the Line of Orions Hospitality Mod or a faction related flavor text and reputation impact could be interesting...