I'm just reaching the point where I don't consider myself to be a noob anymore, having learned how to keep my fortress mostly safe, how to make a cistern & well filled by water from the surface, have defeated a forgotten beast, outfitted a small military with steel, and other things like this that are "old hat" for experienced players.
I just spent hours reading this thread (and before that, Threetoe's other one about stress)... excellent threads!
I'll keep my suggestions short, without going into detail because they've already been discussed a bunch.
FOREMOST:
Set aside new feature development for a while and fix the bugs, especially:
a. bins
b. archers
c. a few others that my tired brain can't recall at the moment
SECONDLY:
c. consolidate & streamline the menus
d. combine the functions of "t", "v", "q", and "k" into just one or two rather than four
THIRDLY:
e. no in-game tutorial (this would take away too much time from the more important things above)
f. no in-game tutorial (it was easy and fun to learn using the wiki and youtube tutorials and the lazy newb pack)
Thank you for this most wonderful, complex, labor of love!
CONFESSIONS:
1. The first werebeast was a complete surprise and !FUN! at the time, but wanting to concentrate on learning more before dealing with another, I retired the fort and found out how to edit them (and vampires) out temporarily while I learn more. I'll bring them back later.
2. I use Dwarf Therapist extensively.
3. Haven't played vanilla (although in my defence I do love Sil and other ascii roguelikes). Vanilla DF is just a bit much for me as a beginner.
4. Learning with the Lazy Newb Pack was excellent!
5. I really enjoy Masterwork DF, but now have scaled back a bit on that complexity and just use Meph's tileset install.
6. The escalating stress problem, I'm trying to avoid by changing the creature_standard.txt STRESS_VULNERABILITY tweaked down a bit, but I've not gone more than about 3 years yet so that remains to be seen.