I would like to offer a non-PvPer's perspective. The impression I get is that the Survival server is geared for people who play primarily to fight each other, but I know I'm far from the only person who plays on S primarily for non-PvP activities. You may think "you should play on the PvE server then", but that's not the same—I like having the risk of being attacked by other players. Anyway:
What's finality?
That's all fine by me.
Smaller map: How small? I thought 5000 square (this rev) was, while not too small, a bit smaller than I expected it to be.
Pearl cooldown: I like this. Without cooldown, lag has caused me to accidentally spam pearls many times, causing me at least one death and multiple near-deaths so far. The suggested alternative, increased pearl damage, would just make this problem worse, and I'd give up on pearls entirely. (I don't use them in SSP; I only use them on the server because they're practically free.) Non-PvP perspective, remember. Maybe it could be set up so that pearl rules change when a player is in combat?
No spawning at beds: What's the point of beds then? I don't want to have to fight my way back home from spawn in the middle of the night with no gear.
Buffer zone: IDK what the effect of this is.
Unsafe buckets: I like this. In SSP I often use water to climb up and down in caves, and I've missed this ability while playing on the server. I'd prefer just one kind of bucket with
/flow on
/flow offcommands, but unsafe buckets work too.
Lockpicking/lock limit: I don't think this is a good idea, for the reasons already discussed, but I'm personally OK with it. It would make it more like chaos. I had more fun (though accomplished much less) during the chaos between Revs 27 & 28 than in either Rev 27 or Rev 28. I lived pretty close to spawn but, once I found a good hiding place, only lost my stuff when someone X-rayed their way to my chests.
Buyable XP: I don't think this is a problem when we have an end grinder. Also, I find it amusing that the word 'buyable' is actually in the dictionary.
Yep. I've pretty much given up on my projects this rev. I started them thinking it would last longer than two months; there's no point in attempting to complete them now.
If revisions are going to be shorter in the future, I just won't play on this server anymore. I don't expect that to affect plans at all; I doubt many people, let alone any admins, care whether I play here or not. But it's just not fun for me if the revisions are as short as this one. But consider that for every person who raises an issue, there are usually several who decide it's not worth it to complain and just leave.
P.S. This is probably already well known, but this forum's WYSIWYG editor generates the worst code I've ever seen. I spent more time cleaning it up than actually writing my thoughts. Edit: Editing the post messes up the code too. >_<