Thanks for playing!
1) You should be able to manually move over your save file; I have often suggested players start new saves for new versions, but I'm mostly done tinkering with bae game mechanics for now so that shouldn't always be necessary. If you ever run into a weird bug though it may be related to having an old save.
2) Those are the best possible right now; adding some more craftable items will be part of the blacksmithing and woodworking revisions that will happen in some future update (check the survey!)
3) There are definitely some reasons that information could be helpful to Graham, but he just hasn't figured that out yet (and I haven't added it to the game yet). One of the things I like about Stubborn Skill Grinder that I'm trying to bring into this game is the idea that a time loop isn't just following the same path every time and trying to get a little further - sometimes you learn that there was a different path you could take right from the beginning. So I really like having these things that Graham doesn't notice or doesn't care about, and later he realizes they're worth paying more attention to.