Yeah that's not great. To be honest for the most part I really like it. Most of the stuff you unlock is pure cosmetics (profile pictures or alternate looks for units—which only display as different for you, not your opponent). They're just some good fun, and I find my completionist nature enjoys jumping into the game to get them.

But there have been a few of the things unlocked as part of the challenges—that 256x mod is one of them, and there have also been a couple of cheat codes more recently—that did feel like more substantial things to miss out on if you happened not to be able to play while they were on offer. I wasn't playing when the 256x mod was around, but when the cheat codes first appeared I recall thinking it was pretty disappointing for anyone who might have wanted them that would miss out for whatever reason.

Yeah fair enough. That sort of thing is definitely subjective and it would be impossible for anyone to say you're wrong.

Personally, I find the new QOL features impossible to live without now. Shift-queueing absolutely any task, being able to queue multiple techs or techs and units, villagers keeping one resource until they actually start gathering—rather than losing all the gold they're carrying just because you accidentally clicked a tree—farm autoreseeding. To me, none of these really change the fundamental way the game feels, they just make it feel like a smoother, more polished version of the original game.