Totems are still safezones. The option to remove one's own safe zone in exchange for better scavenge loot on your tribelands is pending.
Pouches/containers on your corpse are lootable now. You can loot someone in water. You still only have a limited time to loot before the corpse disappears.
It's working according to the devs and the players that I've heard from.
Everything I've experienced says yes that is all mostly fixed. There is more sliding/phasing issues with animals than other people (due i think to client side prediction). There are multiple hit locations possible, but right now only 2 areas are actually hit and cause armor damage. The next combat pass is supposed to fix this. Parrying works very well, if you are fast enough to do it, hehe.
There was a pass done at armors so there is some difference, but I don't feel it is enough. More tweaks are coming to crafting to make the possible differences more noticable, but when? Soon(TM). Weapons actually have different ranges for being able to hit with.
Yes PO's are still around and indestructable, but they took a nerf to damage. High end crafted weapons surpass them, but they degrade and the damage they do degrades the more damaged they get. Many agree the degradation is not fast enough, though.
Skills and stats directly affect damage. More stats and skills affect total HP (on test). AGI greatly impacts swing speed (on test).
On test the new "quest" system allows a player to create tasks that generate XP for both the questor and creator. Haven't tested this much, but it is essentially still just hoarding only you are getting someone else to do it for you. Walls and gates keep people out, but since everything is pretty much lockable within the tribe it really only affects animals. With aggressive revenants coming (many weeks out, still), walls will be more important. Supposedly, eventually they will be able to loot stuff in your tribe, unlike players. Other than that crafting is still pretty much just crafting and building for its own sake.
There is still no "win" condition and I doubt there will ever be one aside from personal and tribe goals set by players themselves.