1. Yes

2. Yes

3. Not even close.  Heroes start maybe slightly stronger, and become trivial.  You need to powergame a bit to make a hero relevant later game.  On the other hand it is from your heroes and sovereign that you gain the ability to cast the massively useful city enchants and the ability to wither or pillar of flame an army on the strategic map can make a hard fight trivial.  That is worth something.  So what if you hero gets killed in one shot by virtually everything. 

I agree that generals or wizards should not be comparable in melee combat to trained unit, but generals should make a difference in an army by boosting their stats (superior tactics and moral enhancing) and wizards should be able to cast powerful spells. On the other hand, high level warriors should be able to fight trained units on their own terms.

1. Yes. However, I would prefer a 50% of what it is now. A split is fair, it is just crippling. When I play D&D, i moved from dividing party exp among members to assigning exp to each member equally. Rather than "1 more player at the table" leeching exp from everyone else, he began contributing EXP to everyone else. A split it fair, however it shouldn't be "unfun". Normal could have 50% split penalty and Adventurer could remove that 50%.

2.  I certainly support higher base exp, and more exp for tougher monsters. I also think minimum exp should scale by unit level because I hate having my best unit get 1-2 exp as a punishment for being in the group.

3.  Absolutely not. Normal Units can't upgrade into a mount, so they have one limitation, and unless Altar, they can't be given EXP bonus. Henchmen are great however I don't play Altar every game like I used to, so I don't see as much of them as I once did. Their redeeming qualities is resurrection and buying equipment singularly, so I can upgrade "just a horse and cloak" or "just my torso piece". Likewise, I can equip them with weapons from lairs and the field. Lastly, Champions. Where to begin. Well, at least they can learn EXP perks and equip weapons from the field, maybe give more spell access. In fact, that is the contribution Champions make to my army; more strategic spell option, i usually just sacrifice them to steal their ability unless I have a good reason to keep them Champions you get early become worthless (making it not worth the investment to gear/level them) and Champions you get later will NEVER be as "good" as a unit you can design, other than you don't need 200 crystal to arm it.

But how will the experience of playing using these other settings get to Stardock?  Don't the modded games generally get less priority?

Ask yourself why you think heroes need more experience?  Is it so that you can have one hero achieve all skills of a particular occupation?  Well that's not the point.  The point is that you're supposed to make tough choices.  Do you want your Assassin to specialize in critical strike or dodge?  Not both.  If you try both, he's going to be mediocre at both.  Do you want your commander to be good at research, gildar, or army's experience?  You don't get all of them.  Make the choice. 

Yes... it will be tedious, and the mod will be hard to make compatible with other mods, but it can be done.

You are a genious Sir

So, I've made the mod, but I don't think it is advisable for me to post such a mod until after the beta.

I want Stardock to get good feedback on things they are doing and how things will be. If Stardock doesn't mind I'll post it, right now I'm not sure it's a good idea.

That was me, and I still stand my suggestion. XP split is needed, the super stack of heroes is bad for gameplay. But 2 heroes in the same stack feels about right and interesting. You can create synergies or help your weakling administrator level up.

Trained units vs Heroes: some feels right, some really do not compete. Middle-late game a hero won't ever compete with a stack of good troups, so damage oriented classes fall behind. What heroes bring to the table is versability, with either spells or skills. Defender is a good example, I keep them behind my frontline spamming Guardian. A life mage with 1-turn wellspring is probably the best addition you can have to your troups.

I'd suggest to increase the versability of heroes instead of damage. Last changes to the defender are a good step. Warrior changes were good, even if they still suffer compared to a normal stack of troups.