Like most new players I'm having Stone management problems. Theirs the obvious one of lots and lots of stone but theirs also a more subtle one involving the mining of ore. A miner seems to be the only proffession ware skill also affects the yield, in other words experts leave more stone then novices. Not only is that inconsistent with the rest of the game its exceedingly annoying as I'll always want to micro-manage my one best (soon becomes Legendary) Miner on the ore veins (I turn off mining for all other dwarfs).
I think we could kill both birds with one..... you know.
When a Tile is mined it will always produce 6 units of some combination of Ore (typically just one), 'traditional' Stone, and a new item called Rubble, Rubble would be universal and not inherit any properties from its parent rock. Removing a floor would produce a 7th unit and thus we can have continuity of volume by piling rubble as a quasi-liquid. Basically the player can designate a 'Talings Pile' area like they currently do with Pits/Ponds and the Rubble is thrown into it and stacks up to 7 deep in a tile (hauling of Rubble units could be 3 or more at a time or some kind of wheel-barrow could be created it). Rubble would 'flow' in the sense that if rubble depth in one tile is greater then an adjacent one by 2 or more it flows/avalanches into it and thus spreads into a nice natural pile through multiple z levels if need be. Eventualy the area of the pile would fill completly and automaticaly de-register itself at which point one can go up another z-level and assign a new pile.
The rubble pile can be walked on and built on like normal so the player can build up a foundation for a surface fortress, or create dams/dikes to control the flow of water on the surface. Or just stuff the Rubble into your abandoned mines. (their might need to be some AI code or user designation as to which direction to fill from so as not to block off the tunnel)
Now of course we need a new designation to actually get Stone, call that Quarry but make it take considerably longer then producing rubble and allow it only as a form of channeling (to get out the blocks you need to be able to cut down around it on all sides). Quarry would still give 1-2 units of Rubble but the majority of the rock is turned into usable stone. Quarrying would also yield Ore if its done on an Ore tile and both options always yield what ever ore the tile is generated with, likewise skills go back to modifiying ONLY the speed of the operation.