I'd be pretty surprised if I'm the first to suggest this, but CAVERNS SHOULD BE OPTIONAL. What do they really add if all anyone ever does is avoid them? I don't know anything about modding, but that is the first thing I'd want to change if I had the power.

Why? Unless you want to rush torches to every nook and cranny of that cavern you accidently dug into (which might be 50+ floors) you gotta check every inch of the map every time you dig. Otherwise, you'll open up dark areas of the map that will spawn monsters. Caverns are worse then aquafiers in Dwarf Fortress. At least in DF, you get a warning before you dig into an aquifier; at least aquifiers produce and endless supply of water and not an endless supply of beetles!

Anyway, if any devs, modders, or aspiring modders are out there, this would make designing your base a lot more fun and reduce the risk of losing your mines to giant bugs or the undead over a silly mistake. I know this game is trying to follow DF warts-and-all, but the way the games generate enemies is different and the devs need to take that into account!