Well, i'm not sure if i'm what you'd consider a 'prominent player'. But i can give my 2 cents.
Addition of a few extra crop types: carrot, lettuce, beans
This is a definite plus. Crop Variety is important; as well as how each crop requires different treatment and can sell for more/less.
Only one basic 2x2 soil brick instead of large and small soil bricks
A decent change but, you may want to consider slightly larger soil bricks that could hold more crops/larger crops that can cost more. An investment of sorts, as a bigger plot = more crops and that leads to more money.
You can buy fertile soil for extra money or non-fertile soil
A great addition though execution could be slightly more diverse. Such as providing fertilizers as a usable item;
which can turn soil fertile. Or perhaps have some effect on an already planted crop.
Plant fences are placed as a separate brick on top of the dirt
Excellent change, i don't see any drawbacks.
Instead of planting with the hoe, seeds for various crops are their own brick
I suppose this change saves time; though perhaps you could make seeds their own item which can be used to plant.
A hoe is used to shape and prepare soil for planting. So what you could do, in case you plan to remove the hoe. Have the hoe instead 'smooth' rough soil. Soil should become rough after you have harvested a crop; requiring you to use a hoe to smooth it out for the next crop. It doesn't add anything game changing but it would be more of an aesthetical addition.
Left click on crops to examine, right click to harvest
Very nice addition. No real drawbacks, though i would suggest that examining a crop provides both the crops current state of health and whether it is ready to be harvested or not
(But i'm sure you already planned to do that)
Crops of certain types take fertility out of soil, other types will put fertility back in but have lower yield, making (a dumbed down version of) crop rotation a profitable thing
This is a very good addition. It should ensure players think twice about what crop they want to plant.
I wouldn't say tilling should be taken out entirely. Tilling is vital for certain crops in particular; so you may want to consider making a variation of soil called 'tilled soil' which only certain crops can be planted in; with a fertile/non-fertile variation as well.
Crops won't die and watering won't be required, but you'll need to water crops with sprinklers to get profitable yields
I can understand why you'd remove this; but it does take some of the realism out of it. All plants and such require water to survive or they do eventually die. By removing this you sacrifice some realism and depth for ease of handling.
In the end it's up to what you want in this case.
In the end most of these ideas are quite good; some could be better though.
I want to stress these are just my opinions and suggestions. You do NOT have to abide by them to any degree.
Poll