I concur with everything you've said here, and I've a few other additions as well. :3
One action I'd love to see return from IT would be the moonwalk dance; that was absolutely the best. Shadows would also be nice, albeit, the shadows in IT didn't look great - but I'm sure that could be ameliorated, and they should at least be an option for people whom want them. Newer maps would be neat - they could even try and bring back some of the ones they had from IT; I well and truly miss Savannah. Maps aren't essential though, as they can be made.
Something that maps could use is for the default ones to be changed a bit - more stuff like dens and embellishment added, ambient sounds, those sorts of things. More manes is also a definite must. Harkane and I were talking about the lack of variety earlier. New head types would also be good, and mayhap even more species to choose from! It says in the main page of feral-heart.com that FH will have more features and extras than IT, so eventually it should have all these things and then some! :3
Whiskers are possible, and I'd also like an option to change the colours of the paw-pads.
As far as water goes, I don't know the OGRE engine very well, and subsequently I'm not sure if it's capable of handling more realistic water like that - though I'm sure there would be certain workarounds, like maybe textures on the surface in certain spots which animate and make it look dynamic - or animated wave meshes which break on the shore! now that would be cool.