Thanks for the detailed review! It sounds like overall you had a great cruise and wonderful time. We've sailed on the Regal 3 times now, most recently in January. We've always had a good time, but on our last cruise we had the same observations as yours that I quoted above. Princess Live is an uncomfortable venue and Explorers is so much better, the Wheelhouse is not big enough (especially compared to the Grand class ships), Crooners is nice but there wasn't any music there on our last cruise, and the Vista Lounge is criminally under used.
I got a chuckle about your 'commercial interruption' as we also never take an elevator on our cruises 🙂