Might the next release (whenever that is going to be) be… Let’s say… Combat update? With the long expected pilus and may-haps the toxin and all of the combat related stuff mentioned here (that means basically pilus, the toxin idea you liked, engulfing and general overworking of the combat a bit). Also, what would add tremendously to the gameplay would be the patches with different environmental stats that might even slightly vary even gameplay from gameplay. That would imho highly improve the variety and uniqueness of every playthrough.
Edit: There might be a poll or that 1v1 one thingy, where you always take two things and the one that gets more votes goes against another winner and we should use this to see what features are the most and the least craved.