OK, I've had a chance to finish going through the second of the two levels. First of all, I hate to harp on the texture set again, but the textures seem very grainy and liquids are no longer transparent. I initially thought that I'd somehow disabled OpenGL but, no, my prefs are as they should be. Is there a script update that I need to use these textures?
Now regarding that second level. Frankly, I agree with you, Forrest. You guys really ought to talk to Blayne about this - he's created some really cool Jjaro citadels for WMaiD that perfectly capture what I would expect of the Jjaro. Maybe he'll let you DL a beta and take a look. I might also mention that there are a lot of texturing problems in this level - areas that are untextured and very sharp angles that don't look natural. BTW, it's fairly easy to wind up falling from that large open area, so something either needs to be done to prevent this or to finish up the outside area and provide a means of return. There also appears to be a trap inside - a deep pit - but maybe I've done something wrong as I never found a chip slot.
All of these things said, I really, really like the concept of the water environment. This aspect of the level is perfect and I wouldn't recommend changing that at all. Hope this has been helpful.