I am MOST excited about the painting aspect. I know!
It's the little things. And maybe resizeable everything! Wowee.
And easier manipulation of building materials!
But on the other hand adding food spoilage, and crop farming issues will add a whole new dimension to the game aspect, and that is exciting too! I know that's "planned" and not done but it's something a lot of us have wanted.
Since you are also planning baking a cooking, and possibly quests—what would be super cool is to have a way for players to also input their own custom recipes using the ingredients at hand. Obviously you'd come up with the basics first, but allowing us to build on that and share them would be awesome. Ditto, quests or storylines, something we might either share (like blueprints) or set up to play our selves or in multi-player or co-op play. I can imagine something as simple as a scavenger hunt or treasure hunt that you write and then set up by hiding things players need to find, like a party game. (Now that we CAN place things in the world! Yay, Red!) Or you could even possibly set up a scenario where you have to fight off raiders (NPCs?).
I would "like" flowing water but it's not that important. It would be nice to have rivers between lakes/seas, but I can see where the different elevations would cause a problem. When you get to the terraforming perhaps just making some placeable water effects (animations) might be one way to do it. (Like Planet Zoo, which also doesn't have flowing water.)
I love the weather and the possibility of changing seasons, and I love how the snow builds up in a natural way. Footprints in the snow is a cool idea, and the sound effects improvements—good job. It's looking gorgeous.
I'm also thankful that you are being so transparent and sharing your Trello board with us, it's helping me keep the excitement and hope alive. (We need that right now!)
I am hoping that the demo when it comes will not overwrite the current version, so that I can keep playing, right? I want to say hurry, but take your time, but hurry! 