The first improvement (Media Foundation by FFMPEG) could be significant. Currently, VALVe generates large shaders to re-render those Media Foundation videos into other free codecs. These shaders can be several gigabytes in size for some games with lengthy videos. With FFMPEG, those videos could be played without being re-encoded as shaders.
Welcome. This is normal. It will be worst later (worst vision, worst reflex, laziness, etc). Just enjoy that your are alive and you will see new iterations (maybe HL3, someday) and new good games. You can not go back to your twenties or beyond, with all your over-the-top reflex, stress-free, free-time, and un-experienced view to be easy surprised. Just enjoy other things, other game types. Never play by obligation.