I appreciate all the responses guys. Really interesting stuff. I think the consensus I see is that when it comes to specific content many agree with me, but there aren't many others who enjoy uncovering the "how the game works" stuff themselves as well. I really enjoy that kind of thing, even if it sort of slows me down in terms of rapid progression. I never really do any preparation for upcoming changes to try and cut down time-to-completes, either.
I think it was also helpful for me to realize that many of you are looking at the QoL/mechanic/system changes as you would look at a patch, totally separate from content or new things to do. That makes more sense to me too, especially because a whole bunch of it affects the game whether or not you have TTK. When it comes to patches I do always want to know as much in advance as possible and just sort of roll out as soon as it downloads without needing any new information as I play. I actually don't know why I'm looking at the TTK release so differently.