Beers... you seem to have a woolly infestation.
I have claimed a hill in the name of Denther. Looks like I have some catching up to do. I will be farming like crazy, so if you need food, let me know. I've barely got a foothold yet, but once I get going, I should be able to pump out some serious crops.
I'd maybe suggest adding a map mod of some sort, but not sure how easy it would be to get it working for everyone and if it would need to be installed by each person. I think it would. I used to admin a server, but am a bit out of date on the game as it stands now.
Disabling creeper block damage is also doable with a single command line I believe, if we wanted to do that. I personally find them nuisances to structures rather than a challenge. They still damage players, just not blocks.
If I had friends that wanted to play, would I be able to get them whitelisted?
Also, I was getting some pretty annoying lag at times on a wired connection with 25 down and 10 up. *shrug*. Not too bad though, and it wasn't constant.