Dev speed and what should be next in the pipeline

[Pulstar]

So 4 and 5 may slow down development in the long run, which means a -1 from me.

1 and 2 seem like eye candy and so i can forego it in favour of new features.

The thing about eye candy is that it doesn't necessarily mean a slower development of new features. Unless the artist is also a coder intimately familiar with KSP's code it is unlikely he will be working on new frameworks that the coders work. But he's still on the team and has to do, well, something (you pay him for something after all), so he might as well work on whatever art assets need to be made if he can't contribute a lot to the main coding effort.

4 and 5 though would slow it down though, probably. But biomes for some places are unlikely at this point, some of the moons or planets may indeed be in for an art pass in the future after all. If you're going to remake the shape of the surface it wouldn't make sense to draw a biome map only to have to redraw it in the future.