It's all personal taste of course, but the gripes about the 3 food system seem silly to me. The only direct effect is that it gives Ahwaric some extra flexibility in modifying growth without resorting to decimal places. It's really a wash if it's 50% more food required but 50% more food produced. I'm not saying that this is the case (it isn't), but my point is that there is nothing intrinsically different about 3 vs. 2 until you get into all the other details. In other words, if you adjusted everything else proportionately then you would have the same exact gameplay (which would be pointless, of course). The gameplay differences in Orbis are in how everything else is adjusted relative to the extra 50% food requirement. First, Orbis makes fishing boats and camps available from first tier techs (I wish pastures were too), rather than being buried 3 techs down the tech tree (e.g., camps in base FFH are essentially out of reach for starting civ). Second, un-farmed (& non-floodplain) tiles are generally not sustaining (2 f from grassland < 3 needed for 1 pop). Third, food production (through improvements and +% buildings) have generally been boosted. So? For every miner or villager you need a farmer. Seems fine from a flavor perspective. From a gameplay perspective:
Pros (in my opinion of course):
1) In Orbis, there are fewer fatal starting areas (although city placement is much more resource/river dependent). In Orbis, a tundra area with game is quite survivable, as is an all-plains area with a river. Both of these would be fatal starting positions in base FFH (other modmods have a camps fix for Doviallo only, but it seems kind of ad hoc to me). In base FFH, you pretty much need some grassland (or floodplains) or forget it. In Orbis, you need a river and/or some food resources. This is mapscript specific, of course, but it is generally possible to find some food resource or river close to your start. Not always possible to get to grasslands.
2) If you want a very very big city in Orbis, you have to work for it. In base FFH (and other modmods), city size is almost entirely limited by the happy cap. In Orbis, it is a more complex consideration of food + happy citizens. This may sound exactly opposite to my point in #1 above. My point above is that Orbis is more forgiving in terms of getting a city started. But Orbis is more challenging for building really big cities. In FFH, assuming it is not a really bad area (which should be avoided anyway) then all of your cities soon have the same exact population (+1 for the capital) dependent entirely on civ-wide happiness factors (resources, civics, religion & tech-enabled buildings). In Orbis, if you want to push the happy cap, you have to have a very food rich fat cross or build a lot of farms. The effect is that there is much more differentiation between megopolises and small outposts (some cities are settled entirely for strategic reasons with no hope of ever being large). Some will see this as a con, but I view the increase in city diversity/specialization as a pro.
Cons:
1) At least in the current implementation, farms almost always trump cottages. I think Ahwaric is trying to re-balance this without swinging the balance the other way. Anyway, it is fixable without scrapping the system.
2) Rivers have become too damn essential. I don't mind that rivers are good, but they have become too good compared to non-river tiles. This is problem is compounded by all the river-dependent building that Orbis adds.
Overall, I like it.
). In the meantime I'll wait for the single installs for Orbis and RifE. I'm also reading the forums (fora?), but as lots of the discussions are either technical or rather involved, even if I happen to have an opinion on a topic, it has often been stated allready. 
