I haven't read all the below but your post reminded me of a post of mine on Dio's a short while ago about veterans. Here's the gist of things.

Information is now at a premium. Veterans grew up in a time when you could master hand to hand with boxing gloves on kobolds at level 5 and there were immortals leading trips all the way to the center of hell.

I grew up in a time when if someone whispered to me how to get the (now nerfed) traveling boots then the boogie man just might come out of nowhere and stomp my nuts.

Over my years of playing I've come to know quite a bit of Thera... maybe even more than half of it by my own ignorant estimates well enough to get around. I know a few wand locations, and the one haste location I once knew is now gone. I know a few stone skin preps but they all suck because of the drawbacks. Over all, I'm satisfied with my mediocre PK and other game skills. I enjoy CF when I do play (which is rarely).

I'll be damned if I'm going to waste hundreds of hours of in game time wandering around aimlessly looking for stuff which might not even be in, ESPECIALLY if it can up and vanish in a second because TLB makes a forum post. The worst part is that those posts are removed so I can't even see the list to know which of my preps is now gone... I have to figure it out by trial and error, sometimes to my demise because I'm only half paying attention when collecting the same old prep I've collected dozens of times. It's ridiculous.

The argument that the reward for figuring out a quest is diminished if everyone else read the walk through is hogwash. Anyone who makes that argument is making it plain that they do not value exploration except for the competitive advantage it gives them with respect to gear/preps.

The current system supports cheating. Two players only have to explore half as much as I do to be on equal footing. Three only a third, etc. I won't cheat and I choose not to compete against those odds, so I must be content to stay at my current level of mediocrity. My skill level will go up over time, but my game knowledge will not. The game, at its current pace changes as fast as I learn new areas (given my frequency of play).

It's great that you make this game and I appreciate it but seriously, who do you think you're kidding when you say you want to play like us? I know you don't intend it to be that way, but it's seriously insulting. You can't play like us, not without open sourcing CF which isn't going to happen. The more secretive we are the more competitive advantage the vets who were here before the Age of Secrets have, and even MORE of a competitive advantage goes to immortal staff.