I will admit that the "magma-rush, cheap-wealth" thing kind of turns me off DF. Just my style of playing. I love this game because you can do so many things. Bringing bronze components will sicken as many other players as magma-rush will for myself.
The advice I give is just for a novice player (I revise my advice for myself regularly because I'm at this skill level in-game).
Cheap, embarkable bronze= good, no digging, no advanced skills necessary.
Magma forges= lots of work, digging, planning, "dig-deep-rush".
Cavern layers=scary without goodish weapons. Caverns tend to come before magma. Goblins tend to come before magma for an early player.
Easy trading=more migrants
Was answering the OP's question from what I think of as a similar view.
The game is in a nice, happy, flux period (literally and ore-ally in a way) that adds ALL features to a fort for you to test. We're in the "society/dwarfen/world relation" development phase currently. The game is a barrel of laughs, the world it is played in is starting to catch up. I don't think the "perfect everywhere, but with lots of aquifers" thing will stay forever. It is up to us to LEARN how to breach aquifers though, for SCIENCE and all.
DF has created enough meme's in the world that even real-life stories can sometimes be told in DF framework. Poorly, and without the required amount of magma.