I like a lot of your ideas. I haven't been able to make steal tools or the drill in my game so I can't comment on that.
Steel tools are currently crafted on the tier 2 workbench. I realize a lot of this is brand new so recipes are subjec to change so I'm gonna wait further to see what @red51 does.
I would like all ores and the coal to only be found underground, not on the mountain sides. I have more fun in the game when I can't find a map, tools, or a weapon in a chest. (When I do find any of those items, I feel like I cheated and start a new game.) I like finding records, ores, and pelts in the chests. I don't like finding caves under your mine, it feels like cheating to get lower without having to dig.
You can disable caves in the world generator on creating a new world. But yes, I agree that the ores need to be distributed better. Minecraft seems to have everything but coal hidden from mountain tops. Most of it should be underground in cave walls with harder to find stuff by purely digging. Here's an idea... things like coal, iron, and sulfur and potasium nitrate (both I hope will be implemented someday so we can craft gunpowder) can be found in cave walls. Other ore nodes are located between cave systems so you have to spend some time digging for it.
I'm not sure I agree with it feeling like cheating when you mine into a cave systems while digging. We still don't have tools that wear out. When that comes, I'm sure it wont be so bad afterall. I like the idea that the new stone axe is so slow to mine. That's gonna force us to use more iron if we want to get serious about mining. I don't like how in Minecraft the stone pickaxes is not that slow and weak to be a nuisance to use. In minecraft I use stone mostly and only keep an iron pickaxe for mining special blocks.
The wild boars, bears, and tigers are close by, making it a
challenge to get food and cut down trees, (ETA, without a weapon).
We just got our first stone tool. Some other stone tools and weapons should be implemented. When more dangers get added to the game, this is probably going to become more of a necessity. For now, avoidance of agressive wildlife works pretty well (especially when we don't yet run out of stamina.. still pending implementation). Personally I like the stone sword from Conan Exiles:
