I've been playing maybe about three months now. Assuming I understand this thread correctly, here are a few things that I'd like to see addressed:
1. Change the up/down navigation from -/+ to -/=. It's a huge PITA for me.
2. Pick one menu-navigation key set and stick with it; e.g., telling the outpost liaison what I want only needs one set of navigation keys.
3. Add a "do this job now or I will strip you of your clothes and send you to fight a forgotten beast naked" option for ALL tasks. It's effectiveness can drop with use, or some such, to make it more realistic.
4. Allow the player, through the manager screen, to prioritize jobs to whatever level of minutiae seems appropriate. If I put in a non-standing order for rock pots, I want its priority level to be higher than almost any other job; sometimes I want hauling to be a priority, sometimes not, and a real manager would be able to make that happen -- with more or less effectiveness depending, &c.
5. Make the manager more useful. Think about this for a sec.: I'm effectively the Lord High Expeditionary Master leading my plebs to build a new colony. I set out the bedrooms, make production decisions, design the fortress, hire & fire, etc. A good manager would keep me apprised of the state of my dwarves along with options that might help. "Boss, Urist McFleabag is pretty depressed. He likes ducks, free one up for adoption, or put him in the kitchen because he likes cooking," or "Boss, you need keep an eye on our seed stocks. You need get your quern a-workin'." I'm off-the-charts ADD even when I'm medicated, and even when my eyes aren't watering from trying to read the individual description screen, I can't remember the first "becomes distracted" by the time I'm on the third. Also, redesign that screen to be more readable.
6. Put descriptions in the Designate (d) menu. I can't remember which trees are alder or oak and which are fruit. Culling my trees is absolute murder for me. Same for pretty much everything else.
7. I'm terrible with faces: I can't tell one miner from the other. Having the v-menu put names on the screen would be a big help.
8. Force Kruggsmash to make an instruction video on burrows. I can schedule my military, even pick out their ammo for them, but I'll be stuffed if I could figure out how to use burrows.
9. Cherry is salmon pink, not brown. Ash is very light brown, almost an off white. Oak is either reddish-brown or grayish-dark white in N. American species. Garapa is mustard colored. Ipe is greasy green. Walnut is chocolate brown. Alder is light brown. Cedar is whiteish or reddish, depending on the species. Adding a wood color palate, for lack of a better term, would be very pleasing to the eye.
That's all I can think of off-hand. ^_^