adamstan

From Valve's perspective, the people genuinely caring about the "waifu holocaust" were a tiny portion of their customer base. The change to actually allow porn, and the way it was handled were way too big of a deal to be directed at appeasing otaku.
While it's true KnS was lucky to squeeze through while Valve was figuring out its policy and only stayed because they decided to not go back on their decisions, I also don't fully agree Valve got more strict than before. Remember, porn was completely banned until the policy change and patches had to be provided outside of the platform. This meant Valve did not take any responsibility for the h-content. Now, when they host full-on eroge, they obviously have to hold them to higher scrutiny, as they're legally liable for it. They're visibly more scared of anime games than anything else, because lolis and schoolgirls, but actually they only fucked up in a very clear way twice, with Hello, Goodbye and Expression: Armilato, and backed out from both desitions. They obviously allow a lot of vile crap at the same time, as their screening system sucks and guidelines are nonexistent, but they aren't as unreasonable in their policy as some would suggest. It might be riskier to put a game with teenage romance on Steam nowadays, but there's tons of stuff that you can sell there that would never be allowed before, at least without some absurd workarounds.

As expected, MTL translators produced gibberish. You'd have better luck just TLing each word one by one from Japanese and making up a story based on that than attempting to MTL, ahahaha

Mashiro iro Symphony has been the top of my wishlist for as long as I've known about it. At some point though it became a top motivator for learning Japanese. If it ever gets translated, I probably won't read it in English although I would probably back a physical version kickstarter if they decide to do one of those since the physical Japanese version is kinda expensive.

Ah, right, it seems I got my Ries mixed up . AFAIK, some people claim that those characters are new subgroup - tsunderie
 

Nah that's Kugimiya Rie, the tsundere queen.
She also has other prominent roles like Louise from Zero no Tsukaima, Shana from Shakugan no Shana, and Alphonse Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist. For those who play Granblue Fantasy, she also voices Vyrn and Vampy.
For my favorites, gotta be Hanazawa Kana. I'm a sucker for her moe roles, particularly those of Onodera Kosaki from Nisekoi and Sengoku Nadeko from the Monogatari Series. Because of her famous roles, she's being given a lot of roles per season, so I understand if people say they're kinda sick of seeing her in every damn seiyuu casting. I would too, if I was watching seasonal shows.
Another would be Sakamoto Maaya. To be honest, I kinda started noticing her after I began to like the characters she voiced in Granblue Fantasy (Arulumaya and Dark Angel Olivia), but her roles in different anime are pretty good too. I really liked her portrayal of Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club and Oshino Shinobu from the Monogatari Series.
For male VAs, definitely Takehito Koyasu. Can't go wrong with Dio Brando's VA. Also noticed he voiced Excalibur from Soul Eater too? Goddamn that's beautiful. I like how his voice flows. So manly. Jun Fukayama is excellent too. I like the kind of characters he voices (Lelouch from Code Geass, Joker from P5) and how different they are in contrast with his character in Granblue Fantasy (Quatre). Can't begin to imagine what kind of vocal cord shredding happens when he shouts his lines.
Not too familiar with VAs in eroges, tbh. I didn't take notice of them too much. I find it fascinating that some of them (like Kadowaki Mai and Asakawa Yuu) can be found in a number of games though lol. Looking forward to playing more eroges with Kadowaki Mai in them.

How the hell did Yui Horie not make this list?
I get that there are way too many godly seiyuu out there to fit on a single poll, but still.

Whilst I find light beams obnoxious, and therefore will be looking for that patch that just replaces such instances with the non-light beam versions, the missing H-Scenes are probably not a problem. I'd have skipped them anyway, I just know it.
At least it seems the original developers wanted to make a good English release without investing too much $$$ and without risking worse attention/experiences than Sony breathing down their necks. That's more than can be said for some companies that ignore criticism (choosing a translation company that isn't very good is somewhat understandable -- the flow of information for a niche market like this doesn't flow very well to the original developers -- but ignoring warnings specifically directed at them does mean they might end up going with SakuraGame for English translations) or are simply xenophobic. That said, I believe it remains understandable that some companies just don't want to release their H-Games overseas. There's been some bad experiences in the past.
And I believe this is ultimately the best approach.
That said, the Western market at the time was a bit iffier than it is now. Now games make it here rather often, whereas at the time releases were far fewer than now. If there's so many VNs you can't read them all, then it's understandable that you'd skip on those that don't agree with your values. As a consumer, supporting the market is not necessarily the primary concern.
No, but I understand how you'd have one and I don't feel like redoing the conversation will be particularly worthwhile.
As you've detailed your perspective, I'll just restate mine:
 
It doesn't matter that in actuality you're missing scenes if the reason you're reading VNs is to feel/experience something. The objective of all-ages versions are to provide experiences/feelings that mimic the original (but may be toned down / less scandalous versions of certain emotional moments) and leave you satisfied with a complete product by the end. All-ages is not competing with 18+, they're different versions of the same thing, and if you feel you had a complete experience, then that just means it did its job correctly in leaving you satisfied with your product.
The ideal scenario is that both versions are always available.

Yeah, but number alone says nothing. I've already mentioned Sanoba - Nene's route reportedly had 9(?) h-scenes, yet Steam version didn't feel butchered at all to me - Nekonyan did great job there, cutting just the intercourse itself, but leaving everything else intact. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Same with Princess Evangile - Steam version is port of console version - just like Noratoto - and I think it was really good, despite reading +18 version first. Story-important scenes (like the first time) got similar treatment like Sanoba, while some semi-random scenes got seamlessly removed, and it was actually beneficial to the flow of the story (I even forgot that there were so many there ).
While I can understand the desire for H, nevertheless since this Noratoto Steam release is based on already existing JP all-ages version, I feel like calling it "butchered for the West" and comparing it to original release of IMHHW is a bit far fetched and unfair.
Of course, it's also possible, that Harukaze didn't do as good job as Moonstone or NekoNyan, and console version will feel incomplete - but then, the outrage should be directed at "poorly done all-ages version", and not just at the act of doing all ages version itself.
I'm probably going to play this after I finish MashiroIro, and then I'll gladly report my impressions here. NoisyPixel's review seems to be favourable despite the lack of H (although they mention, that sometimes it didn't went smoothly).

Well, I'm 35 now, and I just started recently (reading school moeges and watching HS romcom anime )
And, isn't @ittaku way past 40 and still doing this? (I think he mentioned his age in some post)

I don't think so, it's one of those CGs they specifically made and patched in to replace some of the original CGs which were forced to be 90% beams of light in the PS4 version.

Actually that's from the PS4 version. This is the default Steam version of the art:
 

Well, I'm 35 now, and I just started recently (reading school moeges and watching HS romcom anime )
And, isn't @ittaku way past 40 and still doing this? (I think he mentioned his age in some post)

Well, I'm 35 now, and I just started recently (reading school moeges and watching HS romcom anime )
And, isn't @ittaku way past 40 and still doing this? (I think he mentioned his age in some post)

I think I might've already said it somewhere earlier in the thread, but to clarify the CGs have the same degree of minimal censoring as the Switch version does, not the light-show of the PS4 version.

I think I'm going to give it a try. I'm genuinely curious if they managed to keep it good without h-scenes. H-scene count in 18+ version wasn't exactly low (according to this post, 7+4+5+4), but then, OTOH, two best all-ages versions of eroge that I've read were Sanoba Witch and Princess Evangile, which also had numerous h-scenes originally, yet all-ages versions were great.
I wonder how's it with Noratoto, and the game is cheap enough that it doesn't hurt to try
 

I just finished first route (Airi's) in Mashiro Iro Symphony.
W O W
It was great - if it will maintain similar level for remaining three routes, it's clearly aiming for 8+ score. For a moege it is indeed amazing. Nice humor, great romance, likeable characters, great art, music... I also loved SDCGs that appeared here and there. かわいい...
I'm truly impressed.
On to the next route (but tomorrow... )

Bah, I just had to replay quite a bit of YU-NO because the Fuwanovel walkthrough for some reason has a save indicator after a choice you're supposed to save before. I guess I'll have to stay more ahead in the guide from now on (rather than read one line at a time, like I usually do) in order to avoid running into this issue again. I really wish this VN had more than one save slot.

Welcome to the dark side
Yeah, Keyakizaka46 is good. I personally also like many songs by AKB48. Both groups (and many others in "48 group") share the same producer (Yasushi Akimoto), who writes all the lyrics. Music is made by various people/bands. OTOH most of the Hello!Project idol groups (Morning Musume etc) were rather meh to me - maybe those were the ones you found in the beginning.
As for '80s/'90s pop - I absolutely love all CDs by Aya Hisakawa (久川綾). Some songs from Seiko Matsuda (松田聖子) from late '80s/early '90s are pretty good too. There's also ton of great songs on the Sailor Moon related CDs (not all were used in the anime) - they can all be downloaded at sailormusic.net - that's what was my gateway drug into japanese music Songs for Slayers and Magic Knight Rayearth are great as well.
However it turns out that most of my japanese CD collection is from '00s. The great thing is, that they still keep many features from earlier years - it isn't like in the western pop, where new style comes and almost completely wipes away the old. When trying to 'date' japanese song, you can only say "not earlier than" - if there are for example instruments/sounds used that weren't used before. But you can find many songs recorded recently, that could as well be released 20 or 30 years ago - that's what I like about japanese pop the most. They don't discard the past - they build upon it.
Some of my favourite singers / acts (apart from the ones mentioned above):
Anri Kumaki ( 熊木杏里 ), Ai Kawashima (川嶋あい), Miyako Hasegawa (長谷川都), Maiko Fujita (藤田麻衣子), FictionJunction / Kalafina and other Yuki Kajiura's acts, Ayako Ikeda (池田綾子), Kayoko Yoshizawa (吉澤嘉代子), Minako Kawae (川江美奈子)
Most of those are singer-songwriter type - quite different from idols.
Going back to the '80s, I have also compilation CD of Mami Ayukawa (鮎川麻弥) - some nice songs there, including pretty good cover of Modern Talking's "You're My Heart, You're My Soul"
Not sure which ones/how many of those will you like, but at least you have some names to put into YT search to check out
For ultimate cheese, sounding like straight from the eighties, check out girl going by stagename KOTO (not to be confused with Dutch spacesynth band ):
I love how they nailed perfectly every aspect of '80s aesthetics (including both beatuiful synth sounds and horrible visuals )

That's a neat song. But the original is so gloriously 80s! 
 

Are you a super human or a monster?  lol just kidding, to each their own I guess~

There is this genre called City Pop that was popular in the late 70s and 80s that might fit your description.
 

Welcome to the dark side
Yeah, Keyakizaka46 is good. I personally also like many songs by AKB48. Both groups (and many others in "48 group") share the same producer (Yasushi Akimoto), who writes all the lyrics. Music is made by various people/bands. OTOH most of the Hello!Project idol groups (Morning Musume etc) were rather meh to me - maybe those were the ones you found in the beginning.
As for '80s/'90s pop - I absolutely love all CDs by Aya Hisakawa (久川綾). Some songs from Seiko Matsuda (松田聖子) from late '80s/early '90s are pretty good too. There's also ton of great songs on the Sailor Moon related CDs (not all were used in the anime) - they can all be downloaded at sailormusic.net - that's what was my gateway drug into japanese music Songs for Slayers and Magic Knight Rayearth are great as well.
However it turns out that most of my japanese CD collection is from '00s. The great thing is, that they still keep many features from earlier years - it isn't like in the western pop, where new style comes and almost completely wipes away the old. When trying to 'date' japanese song, you can only say "not earlier than" - if there are for example instruments/sounds used that weren't used before. But you can find many songs recorded recently, that could as well be released 20 or 30 years ago - that's what I like about japanese pop the most. They don't discard the past - they build upon it.
Some of my favourite singers / acts (apart from the ones mentioned above):
Anri Kumaki ( 熊木杏里 ), Ai Kawashima (川嶋あい), Miyako Hasegawa (長谷川都), Maiko Fujita (藤田麻衣子), FictionJunction / Kalafina and other Yuki Kajiura's acts, Ayako Ikeda (池田綾子), Kayoko Yoshizawa (吉澤嘉代子), Minako Kawae (川江美奈子)
Most of those are singer-songwriter type - quite different from idols.
Going back to the '80s, I have also compilation CD of Mami Ayukawa (鮎川麻弥) - some nice songs there, including pretty good cover of Modern Talking's "You're My Heart, You're My Soul"
Not sure which ones/how many of those will you like, but at least you have some names to put into YT search to check out
For ultimate cheese, sounding like straight from the eighties, check out girl going by stagename KOTO (not to be confused with Dutch spacesynth band ):
I love how they nailed perfectly every aspect of '80s aesthetics (including both beatuiful synth sounds and horrible visuals )

Confession: For some reason, I decided to destroy the last pieces of human dignity I possessed and started researching Japanese idol groups. After checking out songs by a few supposedly popular ones I nearly died of cringe, even with my anime-induced resistance. However, whoever produces stuff for Keyakizaka46 (I think this group was the direct inspiration for Quasar in Shining Song Starnova, with the fan elections for choosing the center and all? - I guess AKB48 also do fan elections, but this group still kind of fits the image well?) definitely knows their stuff.
BTW, can anyone recommend me some Japanese pop from 80s or 90s? There's a lot of pretty awesome, jazzy JP music from that period that I occasionally stumble upon (in vaporwave remixes for example), but don't really know how to even start looking for it...

I tried Konosuba for the meme. The comedy seems great in some episodes.

That doesn't mean they won't have any influence on the English translations. Unlikely yeah, but not impossible. I'm sure there will be at least a few Chinese people who will want to read the English translations to improve their English. Keeping the translations more accurate would be beneficial to Hikari Field for this reason.
It's also their loss since they aren't getting money from me. Sooner or later I'll get to reading some of them with machine translations since they are more accurate than NekoNyan.