If you were the Creative Director on Andromeda, what would you have done differently?

Bring back squad control. The decision to stay away from procedurally generated planets was a good one, though.

The decision to spend 2 years working on it before they scrapped it, however, was not. That's why, despite spending spending 5 years in development, it still felt rushed and half-finished on release...

There aren't any.

But the plan, earlier in production was that at least some of the planets we could land on would be procedurally generated, rather than hand-crafted.

Obviously, this would make telling a coherent storyline on that world kinda difficult.

This.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procedural_generation

For an example of it not working, see No Mans Sky. Lots and lots of bland planets, but on this one, the flowers are yellow and rabbits have beaks.

For examples of it working, see many small roguelikes that use it to give you different levels on each try, for example FTL: Faster Than Light.

It’s the future but it will take a few more years before it can be perfected to an acceptable level.

I think the goal was to make each playthrough different.  Successful procedural generation also would have meant that you'd have some planets (asteroids, whatever) in your game that no other player has.  It's been successfully used in a variety of strategy and simulation type games for decades, where they generate a new world map every time you start a new game.  Some of those games also have map editors that allow you to create your own maps.

The best use for it in ME imho would be to supplement handcrafted main mission maps, so the additional generated maps could give you a bit more to explore, some resources to gather, various enemies spawning, and whatnot.  No biggie.

I specifically want things to be the same second time round, so it goes faster & I can just see differences in the story/descisions. 

And that's fine.  As it is, MEA's map has a lot of systems with scannable "anomalies" that are completely optional and eminently skippable.

Generating rich story procedurally was a foolishly overambitious endeavor. I would not have started down that path in the first place.

With all the time saved by that, every other issue would have been resolved, then further improvements and polish on top of that.

Everything can be blamed, to some extent, on gross mismanagement from the top regarding this single issue.

The story never needed the Kett, or the remnant or the scourge - we were the invading enemy here. The story should always have been an analogy for manifest destiny  in the post modern-era exploring the themes of imperialism and colonization of alien civilizations. The player should have have been given the opportunity to profoundly shape the course of history of & relationships between the Angara, humanity and the other milky way civilizations for centuries to come.

Helios imo should have been chosen primarily because it's oxygen & carbon rich (explaining Angaran physiology), it's strategic location and finally at it's core lies a 1/100000 giant element zero mass required to power the nexus, arks and construct Mass Relays throughout Andromeda for future expansion. The most earth-like planet designated for human colonization Habitat 7 just so happens to be the  Angara home-world who having defeated the Kett in their recent past have been left both severely weakened and extremely prejudiced and mistrustful of aliens though potentially targets for an alliance.

Human leadership suspected the planet was already inhabited and prepared for full scale (potentially severely costly) war ahead of the journey. Your orders are to secure the planet, the element zero core and the future of humanity at any cost. You're tasked with leading an expedition to Habitat 7 to perform recon on the planet and to (optionally) attempt diplomatic relations with the Angara.

Early on you discover through conversation that the Angara have developed advanced AIs that can communicate directly with alien AI/VIs facilitating basic communication with other advanced alien sentient life. If you submit to capture by Angaran forces you are informed you will be granted an audience with their political leadership to begin diplomatic talks or you can call down forces from the ark and begin a hostile invasion immediately.

If you declare a hostile invasion you can begin capturing Angaran settlements (0-100%) and begin settling the planet for humanity. Out of personal preference I'd make habitat 7 a jungle planet and the Angara would be a guerrilla army of Avengers and Insurgents inspired by Predator.

If you attempt a formal peaceful diplomatic approach with the Angara they propose only that your citizens apply for Angaran citizenship and submit to Angaran laws,  customs and taxes as alien settlements will not be permitted. If you accept this proposal humanity will be recognized as a protected client state of the Angara but in return you must help them sabotage the other milky way species.  If you refuse you can either declare war or simply accept an embassy for future trade negations and look for another home-world elsewhere.  You then meet with Human leadership to discuss options (paths) for the future of humanity:

1) Accept Angara offer and sabotage the other species
2) Attempt to annex Habitat 7 with human forces (alone)
3) Attempt to gain milky way allies first to help humanity take it
4) Attempt to find and settle an uninhabited inhospitable home-world (Veold)
5) Partner with the Krogan, Asari or Salarians and co-settle/conquer their habitat

I'd make the arks much bigger and militaristic. They'd need to contain a fleet and some orbital capability and the cryo-stasis thawing would need to be done en-masse. You'll always need armies to take cities.