1. Melee Combat and Movement
I think simplistic melee combat is fine for this game however there are some changes and some features that could be added that would greatly add to the depth. Firstly, and this is really game breaking, sideways and backwards sprinting. It really is as ridiculous as it sounds and it makes it trivial to kill any zombie, including irradiated wights and packs of dogs by simply sprinting backwards and attacking. Zombies have no hope of killing a player who knows what he's doing and can instantly accelerate in any direction like he's rocket powered. Sideways and backwards sprinting needs to be removed, and player movement acceleration should be decreased slightly. This will make the player less mobile and more vulnerable to your average zombie, especially at night. In place of sprinting there should be a dodge feature, so when the player holds shift and presses and direction other than forwards, he will execute a dodge in that direction, and quickly move a tile space as to dodge a zombie attack.
Blocking - there should be a block feature, cross between minecraft and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. What that entails is that you will block by pressing RMB, and for a short time after the block animation has been initiated it will block all damage from zombie attacks and the player will take a hit to his stamina instead. After that short time, holding block will reduce damage and stagger chance, but not negate it completely.
Kicking. If anyone has played Dark Messiah of Might and Magic they will know how fun this mechanic can be. You should be able to kick or push zombies, to push them of ledges and in to spikes, or simply to get some room from a zombie that has suprised you. Kicking/pushing should cost stamina and have a cooldown, and you could invest perk points to be able to kick better and to be able to effect larger zombies.
2. Levelling, difficulty progression, the heatmap and hordes
To state clearly: the level of the player should have no effect on the world whatsoever. This is one of the worse sins RPG type games can commit, and that's a levelled world. Did you just get a heap stronger? Then so did everything else. It makes levelling up pointless and there is nothing that destroys a sense of realism, survival and immersion easier. Finding irradiated wights and zombie cops in every diner when I'm a high level does not make the late game better, only more tedious. And even more egregious is - when you're playing on no loot respawns which I think is the best option - having to wait until you are a high level player to loot the gunstores and gunsafes. This just shouldn't be a thing. High level loot should be in treacherous places that are hard to get to like the wasteland or military bases - while places like the gunstore in the snow biome, rather than inexplicable having super tough enemies, should simply not have as much good loot (you can loot is easily? So can (did) everyone else). And new players should have a chance of find cool and high-level weaponry as well as finding tough zombies they aren't equipped to kill.
As for the 7th day horde, the difficulty of this should be independent of players level as well. There should be a number of factors which influences the difficulty of the hordes you encounter at your base. Firstly, time. The hordes should get harder as the game goes on, and if you're not at a stage where you can handle it, then tough luck - get better or play on an easier difficulty. The heatmap should also be redone. Instead of just being a ticker than spawns a screamer every time it reaches 100, it should be a numerical values with no cap, and the higher this is the more frequently your base should be attacked, and the stronger the hordes that attack it should be. So for example, you place a furnace and start smelting, and it should at 40 to your heatmap. Turn it off and it will gradually decrease. Add another and it will increase to 78, and every subsequent furnace smelting should add a diminishing heatmap value. Turn them off and your heat gradually decreases. Other things that should increase heat is noise, and block placement/displacement. The more blocks the player places/displaces, the higher heat that area should have - though of course this should be subject to diminishing returns as well. This will make it that your megafortress attract more zombies than you do camping in a POI.
As for the hordes you randomly encounter, firstly, they should spawn further away. Secondly hordes like dogs shouldn't spawn on every 5th day and be predictable. It should be random and dependent on the heat value. There player should have a heat value that is influenced by how much noise he is making and how much he smells, and areas should heave heat values. Area heat value should determine how many zombies are in the area in the first place, how tough they are and what the chances are zombies spawn in the area in general. Player heat value should determine the chances of the hordes spawning and homing in on the player's location. Cities and factories should automatically have high area heat values while plains and fields have almost none. There should be items (such as deer scent) that reduce the player's heat that results from his smell, and there should be stealth perks that reduces the noise and heat increases caused by running and moving.
3. Traders
A lot has been said on how overpowered traders are so I will only touch on that briefly - it's way too easy to get money from traders and they restock way too fast. It's a zombie apocalypse, so it doesn't make sense that traders are booming hubs of business that constantly cycle through stock. Traders should only restock once a week or less and when they restock it should only be partial. As for how to balance the price of goods, well of course due to the economic calculation problem it's impossible for a central planner to perfectly allocate the price of goods, so what would be ideal is that data is collected on what people people buy and sell, and a system automatically increased the price of a good the more it is bought, and decease it the more it is sold. This would be the best way to balance the market prices.
The other point I want to make about trading is that traders should not be invulnerable (yes, on multiplayer servers server owners should be able to make traders indestructible if they so desire). Traders should have to have guards and turrets to defend their base against zombies just the same as a player does. Occasionally, and I stress occasionally as this could quickly become annoying, the player should get a quest to help defend the traders base from an impending zombie attack. If he doesn't accept the quest there should be a chance that the trader is destroyed. If the trader is destroyed, there should be a small chance that the player the player gets a quest to help rebuild the trader by collecting building materials and traps.
4. Base Defence; traps, underground and stilted bases
There has been controversy about this issue, however I posit the notion that 7 Days to Die is a survival game, thus survival should be challenging, thus it should not be trivially easy to dispose of the games mean threat which is the 7 Day Hordes by digging 20 feet underground. Listening to some psychology lectures on Youtube an interesting fact that I remember hearing is that completely different neural circuits are used when aggression is initiated upon you, compared to when you initiate aggression (even when the threat is the same). The point I'm making about this is that in 7 Days to Die, unlike many other games where you attack the boss, 7 Days to Die is, and should be, a game where you are attacked whether you like it or not. That is what makes the game unique and gives it a foreboding atmosphere. It should make the player afraid. So I think it greatly detracts from the game that zombies can't attack downwards. It's already a given that zombies can sense the player wherever he is, and tear through concrete to get him, so it doesn't seem like that big if a leap that the zombies should be able to claw through earth. Players can disable that if they wish. But I do not like feeling invulnerable every time I go underground. There should be a threat of zombies collapsing through the tunnel and it being like the tunnels described in World War Z. Although I can realise why people not wanting hordes of zombies digging gigantic sinkholes in the earth - there should be a type of digging zombie that is good at digging through dirt and stone, to create tunnels that other zombies can follow though.
Also, if zombies cannot reach the player because he is too high, the zombies should start attacking the blocks holding up the base instead of uselessly milling under the player. Zombies don't necessarily need an advanced knowledge of structural integrity to do this, and considering that zombies were once human, it makes sense that they might have a trace of their old intelligences.
Another idea that I have is that is multiple zombies die in one spot, this should create a gore block that rests above traps instead of getting destroyed. This will start making paths of spikes, clog up traps, death pits and spinning blades, and climb up piles of gore to get over walls. I think this is an easy and realistic way to make base defence more nuanced and enjoyable, so that zombies can't be defeated by just luring them into a bunch of spikes.
Also, zombies need better pathfinding. If there is an open door they should go through it instead of attacking the blocks around it like they sometimes do. And zombies should not all try to get through doors, but they shouldn't all go to attack the door, it makes zombie behaviour too easy to anticipate.
I think simplistic melee combat is fine for this game however there are some changes and some features that could be added that would greatly add to the depth. Firstly, and this is really game breaking, sideways and backwards sprinting. It really is as ridiculous as it sounds and it makes it trivial to kill any zombie, including irradiated wights and packs of dogs by simply sprinting backwards and attacking. Zombies have no hope of killing a player who knows what he's doing and can instantly accelerate in any direction like he's rocket powered. Sideways and backwards sprinting needs to be removed, and player movement acceleration should be decreased slightly. This will make the player less mobile and more vulnerable to your average zombie, especially at night. In place of sprinting there should be a dodge feature, so when the player holds shift and presses and direction other than forwards, he will execute a dodge in that direction, and quickly move a tile space as to dodge a zombie attack.
Blocking - there should be a block feature, cross between minecraft and Chivalry: Medieval Warfare. What that entails is that you will block by pressing RMB, and for a short time after the block animation has been initiated it will block all damage from zombie attacks and the player will take a hit to his stamina instead. After that short time, holding block will reduce damage and stagger chance, but not negate it completely.
Kicking. If anyone has played Dark Messiah of Might and Magic they will know how fun this mechanic can be. You should be able to kick or push zombies, to push them of ledges and in to spikes, or simply to get some room from a zombie that has suprised you. Kicking/pushing should cost stamina and have a cooldown, and you could invest perk points to be able to kick better and to be able to effect larger zombies.
2. Levelling, difficulty progression, the heatmap and hordes
To state clearly: the level of the player should have no effect on the world whatsoever. This is one of the worse sins RPG type games can commit, and that's a levelled world. Did you just get a heap stronger? Then so did everything else. It makes levelling up pointless and there is nothing that destroys a sense of realism, survival and immersion easier. Finding irradiated wights and zombie cops in every diner when I'm a high level does not make the late game better, only more tedious. And even more egregious is - when you're playing on no loot respawns which I think is the best option - having to wait until you are a high level player to loot the gunstores and gunsafes. This just shouldn't be a thing. High level loot should be in treacherous places that are hard to get to like the wasteland or military bases - while places like the gunstore in the snow biome, rather than inexplicable having super tough enemies, should simply not have as much good loot (you can loot is easily? So can (did) everyone else). And new players should have a chance of find cool and high-level weaponry as well as finding tough zombies they aren't equipped to kill.
As for the 7th day horde, the difficulty of this should be independent of players level as well. There should be a number of factors which influences the difficulty of the hordes you encounter at your base. Firstly, time. The hordes should get harder as the game goes on, and if you're not at a stage where you can handle it, then tough luck - get better or play on an easier difficulty. The heatmap should also be redone. Instead of just being a ticker than spawns a screamer every time it reaches 100, it should be a numerical values with no cap, and the higher this is the more frequently your base should be attacked, and the stronger the hordes that attack it should be. So for example, you place a furnace and start smelting, and it should at 40 to your heatmap. Turn it off and it will gradually decrease. Add another and it will increase to 78, and every subsequent furnace smelting should add a diminishing heatmap value. Turn them off and your heat gradually decreases. Other things that should increase heat is noise, and block placement/displacement. The more blocks the player places/displaces, the higher heat that area should have - though of course this should be subject to diminishing returns as well. This will make it that your megafortress attract more zombies than you do camping in a POI.
As for the hordes you randomly encounter, firstly, they should spawn further away. Secondly hordes like dogs shouldn't spawn on every 5th day and be predictable. It should be random and dependent on the heat value. There player should have a heat value that is influenced by how much noise he is making and how much he smells, and areas should heave heat values. Area heat value should determine how many zombies are in the area in the first place, how tough they are and what the chances are zombies spawn in the area in general. Player heat value should determine the chances of the hordes spawning and homing in on the player's location. Cities and factories should automatically have high area heat values while plains and fields have almost none. There should be items (such as deer scent) that reduce the player's heat that results from his smell, and there should be stealth perks that reduces the noise and heat increases caused by running and moving.
3. Traders
A lot has been said on how overpowered traders are so I will only touch on that briefly - it's way too easy to get money from traders and they restock way too fast. It's a zombie apocalypse, so it doesn't make sense that traders are booming hubs of business that constantly cycle through stock. Traders should only restock once a week or less and when they restock it should only be partial. As for how to balance the price of goods, well of course due to the economic calculation problem it's impossible for a central planner to perfectly allocate the price of goods, so what would be ideal is that data is collected on what people people buy and sell, and a system automatically increased the price of a good the more it is bought, and decease it the more it is sold. This would be the best way to balance the market prices.
The other point I want to make about trading is that traders should not be invulnerable (yes, on multiplayer servers server owners should be able to make traders indestructible if they so desire). Traders should have to have guards and turrets to defend their base against zombies just the same as a player does. Occasionally, and I stress occasionally as this could quickly become annoying, the player should get a quest to help defend the traders base from an impending zombie attack. If he doesn't accept the quest there should be a chance that the trader is destroyed. If the trader is destroyed, there should be a small chance that the player the player gets a quest to help rebuild the trader by collecting building materials and traps.
4. Base Defence; traps, underground and stilted bases
There has been controversy about this issue, however I posit the notion that 7 Days to Die is a survival game, thus survival should be challenging, thus it should not be trivially easy to dispose of the games mean threat which is the 7 Day Hordes by digging 20 feet underground. Listening to some psychology lectures on Youtube an interesting fact that I remember hearing is that completely different neural circuits are used when aggression is initiated upon you, compared to when you initiate aggression (even when the threat is the same). The point I'm making about this is that in 7 Days to Die, unlike many other games where you attack the boss, 7 Days to Die is, and should be, a game where you are attacked whether you like it or not. That is what makes the game unique and gives it a foreboding atmosphere. It should make the player afraid. So I think it greatly detracts from the game that zombies can't attack downwards. It's already a given that zombies can sense the player wherever he is, and tear through concrete to get him, so it doesn't seem like that big if a leap that the zombies should be able to claw through earth. Players can disable that if they wish. But I do not like feeling invulnerable every time I go underground. There should be a threat of zombies collapsing through the tunnel and it being like the tunnels described in World War Z. Although I can realise why people not wanting hordes of zombies digging gigantic sinkholes in the earth - there should be a type of digging zombie that is good at digging through dirt and stone, to create tunnels that other zombies can follow though.
Also, if zombies cannot reach the player because he is too high, the zombies should start attacking the blocks holding up the base instead of uselessly milling under the player. Zombies don't necessarily need an advanced knowledge of structural integrity to do this, and considering that zombies were once human, it makes sense that they might have a trace of their old intelligences.
Another idea that I have is that is multiple zombies die in one spot, this should create a gore block that rests above traps instead of getting destroyed. This will start making paths of spikes, clog up traps, death pits and spinning blades, and climb up piles of gore to get over walls. I think this is an easy and realistic way to make base defence more nuanced and enjoyable, so that zombies can't be defeated by just luring them into a bunch of spikes.
Also, zombies need better pathfinding. If there is an open door they should go through it instead of attacking the blocks around it like they sometimes do. And zombies should not all try to get through doors, but they shouldn't all go to attack the door, it makes zombie behaviour too easy to anticipate.
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The good thing about the game is that it's great value as it is, and has great potential going forward 
