Hi
One thing I’ve noted when I’ve started using crates … the storage zones you have a very nice visualization on how much of X resource you have left. If you plan your village well, you would have (10x10 zones) two zones for wood only around your carpenter, two for the mason, two to three for ores for the blacksmith and separate zones (close by) for their by-products.
So you can tell if you have a carpenter and two empty zones around him, you need wood (and the carpenter running somewhere far away where you chopped the last threes, fetching what was left of wood there before the food bell rang last.) … with crates … I have two boxes besides him and … no idea until I click on them.
Would be nice to have a side panel which you could select items from your inventory and have a sticky icon on the left with its quantity or a bar. This way I could pick what is interesting for me (wood, ore, stone) and not others (plants, bread, etc).
Also … uncooked food doesn’t spoil on crates 
heh … does it means they are refrigerated? 