If I remember correctly, in Runescape, there are mines underground with enemies surrounding them, making them harder to access. That was one of the suggestions you provided so I didn't agree with that much.
Perhaps it's better in a sense because this is still in its test form, from what I understand, but I see great potential for PS, I'm excited to see where it goes.
Runescape had ore stones too, specific rocks that had specific ore, I haven't been able to mine yet I'm terribly new but from what I understood, you could go anywhere and start mining and you might get lucky. I like that idea better.
Now I'm still getting the "Rats are impervious to attack" or any other enemy I come across for that matter so I haven't experienced the fighting style in this game, but I'll take your word for it and assume it's another thing they're trying to work on.
And I don't want to sound like the forum attackers who have nothing to say so they attack your grammar or spelling, but it does need a little work to gain more attention I think.

If you use Firefox it does spell checking and underlines the words you've misspelled, or you can even open up a word document and paste your post in there and it'll high light even your grammatical mistakes.