Well, since nobody else seems to have made any mention of results with the new SC version, I suppose I may as well post my results from playing several years of it.
I genned a fairly small world with only 1 cavern layer, min history, 500 mineral distribution, all races, and embarked on a haunted tropical biome. No major problems; dug down to magma and got addy armor before year two.
I did notice that there tended to be a lot of black squares of 'dead' shrubs around - evidently some type of the new plants doesn't die well, but I'm not sure which one.
Anyway, everything went fairly well for a year or two. I did note that, in a change from the usual system where only hunters wear leather clothes by default, the leather/cloth distribution for my dwarves tended to be random. Also, none of the traders ever brought any type of clothes, from any race, even their own; was rather odd for the elves, since it meant that the majority of their goods were actually wooden crafts rather than clothing.
I maintained 100+ FPS through almost the entire second year, when it normally doesn't last past the third migrant wave or so; it's definitely a LOT faster.
I was especially grateful after I got the largest ambush I've ever seen in year three, with 4 squads each of goblins, bog trolls, and lizardmen, as well as 15+ theives, at the same time. That would have been impossible to clean up after without the reduced clothing.
My military is also extolling the virtues of adamantine great helms. I have yet to see anything that can even graze them. My militia commander survived 20+ pages of being stabbed in the head by several squads of goblins while unconscious, and even voidwalker thieves' voidshard razors (which I assume are the most effective weapon that any enemy can wield, considering how knives and similar weapons are overpowered) glance off harmlessly. I'll have to test them against the clowns, but so far they're making my military practically invincible.
I also actually constructed the temple of fire this time around; first time doing that. For some reason, it accepts any tool for its construction - such as pots, nest boxes, and the various slabs. Naturally, I used one on gasoline.
As for its reactions, I found that they're far, far too slow to produce usable products to ever be economically feasible. Sure, if a noble wants steel items and you don't have any flux, it could be a lifesaver, but even getting enough for an entire suit of steel armor would take months.
I also built the various shrines, although the ritual of victory is the only one I used significantly. I've encountered some issues with it, though. First, since it's taking two body parts, which are more often than not whole corpses, it's always at maximum clutter and takes forever to actually do anything.
Second, if you're using a fresh corpse, and it becomes a rotten corpse while being used (entirely possible considering how long it takes), it will cancel the ritual claiming that the job item was lost/destroyed. After this occurred, I have been completely unable to reproduce the ritual at all. I've got a metric ton of corpses and body parts, from enemies and wild/stray animals, of practically every single body part. I also have plenty of the rock mugs I previously used for it, and when those didn't work I produced a large amount of silver goblets. Still refuses to register that I have the ingredients, so I'm kinda lost there.
I also began producing hadrine. I thought the capital 'H' for the mesh looked a bit odd, by the way - almost like a corpse. Anyway, I think the value of the mesh may be inflated a bit - no quality mesh is 36k, and if it has any quality at all it's worth more than masterwork addy. Even if it should be worth that much, there's a major difference between the value of the mesh and that of the products - helms and chestplates are worth less than a forth of the value of the no quality mesh used to make them. A masterwork helm is only worth 25k (copper mechanisms). That's a tremendous loss, especially with masterwork mesh (never got any, but judging by the prices, it might be the single most valuable item in existence).
Aside from that, I started growing some crystals. Everything seems to be working fine there; I haven't had it up for long. I did note that it'll use clay to grow them; probably intentional, but I wasn't quite sure.
Also, I'm swimming in lustrum, but in four+ years of having a minimum of three training workshops going at all times, I haven't received a slab about it. Everything else has tons of copies, but no lustrum. Rather irritating with the RNG there. If there was some way to, say, turn 10 slabs of one type into another it would be nice. Could always require a ton of valuable stuff, too. I mean, I'd throw in some addy bars if I could just get it already; I need a way to train my alchemists quickly.
I'm enjoying this version, honestly. I don't have to worry half as much about FPS. The one thing I'm concerned about that I was unable to test is how the simple clothing works in preventing FB rot and the like. I've had my caverns open since the beginning, but no beasts; I suspect they're either dead or didn't exist in the first place.
*ends text wall* Sheesh. My posts always end up so long...