Yeah, I was so/so on the tiles, but I think you'll learn to tolerate em at least in game. And at worst this is an introductory area, not where you'll be spending the bulk of the game. Also, for what it's worth, I do think it's very mall-like: they tend to have somewhat over-the-top floor designs. But I'm not married to it: if we get to supporter testing and enough people are going "Ahh my eyes!" I can always try a different tile.
No, nothing special with fights. Same as GT: the final fight changes based on various paths you take and things that occur before you get to the boss.
Appreciate the sentiment on nooks and crannies though. As I've said before, I very much enjoy that feeling of having weird little bits squirreled away here and there for people to find, to the extent that, as you know, I've even asked to leave a FEW small things off the official guides. It's fun to just stumble into things. But I do try to balance that with dev time, and not go TOO overboard with scope creep. A lot of the fun extras are fairly simple stuff, tiles I already have, text only scenes, that kind of thing. But it's still one more little thing in the world.
Oh there's going to be a lot of fun stuff with Scratch in Chapter 3 eventually. Won't say more than that.
And thanks, same to you!