Removing Communuties, Create post, Create community from menu ;
Adding local communities directly to the menu, used as categories ;
Adding posts from a "pages community" directly to the menu, e.g. About me ;
Removing Trending communities and Trending/Local/All filters from the homepage ;
Removing Blocks, Languages, Show NSFW content, Blur NSFW content, Bot Account, Show Bot Accounts, Show Read Posts, Import/Export Settings from settings ;
without upvoting etc. and related sorting options?
No, these are useful.
Probably a bit of a facelift too and some elements that make it clear what community/blog you’re looking at?
Yes.
As I’m writing this I’m thinking that it would probably make sense to have a built in web view specifically for outsiders to see a community as a blog.
A blog-focused front-end, as you said. Either that, or customization of the official front-end (but not while unstable).