Myst 3: Exile - replay thoughts part 1

I foolishly spent a bunch of time after getting back from Readercon for the evening on installing and testing out the Myst 10th Anniversary games and starting my re-play of Exile. I figure I'll keep track of my responses to Exile this playthrough (warning: some of this might be construed as spoiler-y, though there won't be any actual puzzle answers or anything).

( random thoughts so far )