Thanks for addressing many of my issues.
I wanted to experiment with the new changes, but the multiplayer matchmaking seems to be putting me up against replays from the old patch, as none of my opponents seem to build scaffolding. As a result, it's hard to evaluate the impact of the balancing changes. This is mostly my fault for continuing to spam multiplayer until my rating was far higher than anyone else's, so I can only face the same 3 replays, so I guess there's not much to do but wait and hope that some other people find the game as enjoyable as I did.