Thanks for the feedback. I'll increase ore patches a bit.
For 2 & 4 I'll think on ways to improve this. Perhaps adding an optional later tech that opens a faster version of steel furnaces or something. I did indeed play around with the idea of making a compound in assemblers and then smelting the carbon/tungsten compound. The extra unused intermediate didn't feel right, for this suite of mods. (I think Angel's and Pyanodons do these types of things better, I'd rather stay closer to Vanilla+ for these mods). As I mentioned in another thread, longer term, I might address this issue by giving furnaces the "Krastorio 2" treatment so they can take multiple ingredients, but that would probably be a new mod at a later date. But, in the meantime, I'll make sure to improve the overall late game issue with UPS & general need for higher production of Tungsten Carbide.
For 3, I'll think on it. I settled on having Tungsten enter the game after green science but before oil. Requiring it for the assembler upgrade and engines makes that point stick. Thematically it also makes a lot of sense that upgrading from the slower assembler to the faster assembler requires new tools made from tungsten carbide, so overall I'm leaning towards keeping it that way. But I will definitely think about it :)