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Well, I haven't been reading HoME in the same way as you. I've been reading each version of the various chapters sequentially - which has meant reading both Return & Treason, & sometimes three or four versions of feach chapter, & then thee final version in LotR. Its been both confusing & enlightening. Mostly confusing though - which is why I haven't contributed to this thread. My few insights have gone into the main Chapter-by-chapter thread - & here I must apologise, because I have a hellishly long post for the Farewell to Lorien thread - which I can't see anyone reading all the way through! As well as HoME I've drawn on The Road Goes Ever On.
To respond to your points, though: Gandalf is certainly more irrascible, even occasionally nasty, Bingo/Frodo is developing into the character we know, but its obvious that, as Carpenter has said, Tolkien was writing blind, & often its clear that he had no idea, even into the third or fourth versions, of where he's going, or what kind of book he wants to end up with. Its clear, I feel, that he took a long time to find his feet, & much of the early stuff is clumsy. We do see a masterpiece forming before our eyes, & we can only be grateful to CT for what he's given us - we'll never have anything like HoME again.
Oddly, though, I still think we don't get a complete insight into Tolkien's genius, even with all this material. I read it, & still feel there must have been this incredible ferment going on in his subconcious. You can see his struggle to discover 'what really happened' & set it down. I'm reminded of Jung's writing of the 'Seven Sermons to the Dead', which apparently produced all kinds of psychic & synchronous events, till he set it down, & which he believed had not come from his own mind, but had been 'given' to him, that he had been chosen to communicate it. Clearly, Tolkien could not leave this story till it had been told.
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