First of all thank you for doing the update and looking at all my points.
The numbers do seem more readable now. So thats a good change.
Thank you for adding the auto preset save option as well, and confirming the changes on the dism stuff.
If you dont mind I would appreciate it if clicking the titles did not toggle compress/expand (limited to clicking the arrow), os if the offer is there for an option, I will take it.
Option to expand on title click added in the next version, thanks again.
Reason why presets are delayed until selected is because people rarely expand them. Double-click actions also block expand on click, like e.g. mounted image with winre below it, double-click is load, click-expand then load would look weird.
Just loading the image, without even applying a preset, most (some?) Settings, Features, Post-Setup and Unattended - but not Registry and Drivers - are now already populated. Is that by design? Where does this come from?
Not sure I understand the question, populated in what sense, your previous (auto-saved) preset or descriptions in rows?
Preset auto-loading by default was there 12 years now.
I noticed a new setting "Backup preset and log to the edited image". Is that it? And it's enabled by default and I'm not thrilled at all. I do not like it. I want to be in control of which preset to load. Why is it on by default? How do I stop this from happening, how do I remove the preset from the image and load the image without all this being automatically populated so I can pick a preset to load?
Open any old NTLite, compare, then come back and tell me what is this point about, sounds like internet drama with no merrit.
Turn off the option you don't want, it's why that option is there.
As to why auto-loading and auto-saving of presets exists (and always did), scroll to Preset list:
Image list, preset management, and specialized tools.
ntlite.com
To make it worse, the Post-Setup section is now a total mess as all "After Logon" actions are repeated/multiplied 10 times or worse.
Sounds like a bug to me, send me the preset which does that and it will get fixed.
For example take a fresh image, add a command, save as preset, then apply/load whatever and tell me if it multiplies, then attach that preset.
PS2. I don't know... lots of stuff moved around for "reasons", some make sense, some don't, but it seems it takes more clicks, more items to expand
I cannot confirm this part, please compare to old NTLite and let me know what to look for, for me all is faster or same in the new in terms of actions required.
now to get where you want to go. Whether the UI looks better is a question of personal taste, I don't care for the new looks, rounded corners aplenty, poor UI contrast (grey fonts on grey background) I can get used to it, I suppose... At least I don't find the UI laggy as some others said.
Grey fonts... ok, finally something tangible, will re-check. I don't use light theme to be able to comment, to me it's too bright in general and it is as same as Windows would do, but got a similar report multiple times, last version had it improved compared to previous.
All the time it was in a virtual machine, reset to snapshot after each processing, both guest and host restarted multiple times. Few days worked badly, today not. 
