I think you should include the qds as well. Since you don't use it till later quests really, I don't think it's to anyone's advantage. Also, right from the start, it'd be nice to know what I'm supposed to do. Should I be trying to do quests, walk around island. Am I supposed to move into the mansion, will that screw anything up, etc... I ended up making camp right there where I started and walled off the area to try to get survival stuff in place and when I saw I had to make the qds, I had to go mining and get a bunch of sand for glass, etc... I know how to do all of that, no problem, but early on, if you're going to touch on anything to start the person off in a direction, it might make sense to at least nudge them that way. As it stands, I have zero clue what the molten redstone thing is in basement, those items in shelves, do I need them for something or do I just use them, etc....
Also, just curious, what happens if you throw things in the hopper puzzles that's not supposed to go in? Do they get returned or sucked in somewhere? I was very tempted to mine around them and see the logic but resisted. Are you using some of the HQM blocks that aren't used in other packs? I see them in NEI but never played with HQM edit-wise.