I've been following the discussion thread as well, and though I don't agree with most of the requests, I don't see the point in arguing: if features that I don't want to use get implemented, I simply don't use them.
Currently however, most of my games are ITYTD, which is a good enough playground for getting to know the game as is. If you want to rush into danger, you'll probably sneer at this difficulty level. Putting Safety Mode 'auto on' in ITYTD makes this difficulty level a joke instead of a learning curve. Auto on would be fine for a 3-level tutorial for example, but not for a full-fledged (albeit very easy) standard game mode.
Or maybe you could include the option in the ini, same as the hints.