Hey man! I really like your list, especially the explanations on cuts 
I run a similar list to some extent, tho I'm mostly leaned into basic landramp with cards like sakura tribe elder, diligent farmhand or dawntreader elk. My question would be if you would consider dorks the better strategy overall since they speed up games more easily or if they are too vulnerable. My playgroup runs a fair bit of removal and wipes and I was always scared to slot them in (I still have them lying around). 
I think my completely unhelpful answer is, 'It depends on meta'. Since this deck is really a stax deck which CAN combo win fast but generally goes a little slower you should play with where the line between fast and slow for your meta is. If you go too slow people will start to speed faster than you can control and will combo off before you are relevant.
One thing that I like about dorks is that they speed out relevant T2 plays in the deck. While Fetch, grab
Bayou,
Elves of Deep Shadow, T2,
forest,
Oppression /
Bottomless Pit /
Cunning Lethemancer ect isn't a game-winner by itself it starts you on the road to accumulating an asymmetrical state where you can use your GY as a resource and other people are just pitching cards. If you go T1
Diligent Farmhand, T2 Crack Farmhand, T3 Discard piece? Your discard starts at minimum a turn earlier. If you have an option as to whether to put out a discard piece or Meren on T3, I would usually try to put out the discard pieces first so that hand sizes reduce a little before you run Meren out. This means that people have to pick whether to keep point removal for your commander as opposed to other things.
Diligent Farmhand over
Dawntreader Elk do have upsides - they are better lategame draws because they also get you XP when they sac themselves. If your meta is at the speed that you want to play those cards, I cannot recommend
Grave Pact enough. If you can turn
Grave Pact into a lockdown piece with instant speed sac effects this is pretty strong - especially when wipes keep the board such that your
dawntreader elk means the first creature someone else plays will die when you pop it.
Blood Pet, is another potentially good piece in this same vein also.
Shriekmaw is pretty great too if you don't have to instant speed remove stuff or if
Opposition Agent isn't something you're worried about.
Dismember has worked very well in comparison to
Shriekmaw in my meta so I doubt I will go back.
Reducing the number of dorks and going slower is very reasonable when you have a lot of creature hate in your meta - you just have to decide how many dorks you can live with and what your expected gameplan is. In a slow enough meta,
Cultivate is good. Of the below, Birds will tap for any mana which is good for fixing.
Deathrite Shaman is a stax piece, so don't cut that and
Elves of Deep Shadow is the best 1/1 dork because he ensures you have the color that you didn't use to pay for him. The other 3 elves are identical.
Birds of ParadiseDeathrite ShamanElves of Deep ShadowElvish MysticFyndhorn ElvesLlanowar ElvesOhran Frostfang uses bad creatures that you have lying around to draw cards (except Birds) so bear in mind that there ARE ways that you could possibly draw cards from your dorks.
I do want to caution though that the higher up in powerlevel that you go the more commanders there are that draw -a ton- of cards. You cannot compete with Thrasios/Tymna in card draw. Don't try. Meren's advantage is that her XP is functionally 1 card per turn and also casts that card for free if you have the XP and gives you tempo. Also, the recursion can let you set up silly loops such as mind slicer and a sac outlet keeping everyone's hand clear.
It's pretty normal that you are outpaced on cards by certain decks. Kenrith or Thrasios with a
Training Grounds will draw cards ALL DAY. You should aim to slow these decks down through stax and discard and win in the window of time where you've kept them from winning - there is a pretty defined middlegame where the opponent is under some amount of lockdown before they run away with it as you try to assemble the win.
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