Ew those straight edged highlights on those rocks ruin it in my opinion. The softness of the original palette (or w/e) was much better i think.
Really nice piece tho, keep it up. 
Yeah it might be a little bit more appealing to the eyes, but this will help seperate the foreground from background later on.
Atleast I hope

And Smiker: I don't really understand what you mean. The initial colour limitation? Less colours now more colours later? Eh?
Anyway: Smoothness for the tree. I think I'm gonna go with the new tree. It just fits better, has more depth, and looks more interesting:

There will by the way be interaction of the tree with the rocks, however, I'm gonna wait with that till I can completely call the rock tile finished.
Otherwise it will be alot of unneeded bitching if I change the rocks.