"Two things that influence whether poured concrete is a good choice ... do you live in a mild climate where the footer need not be excessively deep and can you get a concrete truck along the wall to pour directly in the forms. It's not only just the depth of the footing that has to be calculated in earthquake country ( of which this particular location is on a very active fault line ) it is the width of the footing as well as an appropriate steel schedule . Having the concrete truck be able to pull right up to the forms is irrelevant. Pumpers are easily available . My office is not that far from this site and I have worked in this county and the counties surrounding this area. The cost for permit submittal is about the same as in other surrounding counties with the exception of some areas in Carmel. The average course of action in construction with these common retaining walls is to remove the rotting wood and replace with pressure treated wood. This will sail through the permit department especially if the concrete piers are in good shape and the cost of the permit will be in the couple hundred dollar range. There will be no additional engineering costs if you simply replace the wood. The planning department may want to see a drainage detail , of which you can use a standard detail that is provided in the UBC. They even had their own detail booklet put together ( about 20 years ago ) that homeownera and designers could purchase for a couple of buck that had common details for retaining walls documented. It also will not cause any problems when the house is sold and goes through the re-sale inspection process.

I like Zinnser Watertite.

IMO the puddles are not a huge deal. It will dry up. Trying to fix this with a patch will end up with a patch that probably wont match. It would require complete redo and the redo may end up the same. I feel there are a few spots that dried a little quicker that is all that contributed here. Find me a sidewalk with no puddles here and there. Here is more info. It has a chart with a 10 foot straight edge and what is acceptable gap. The other option for repair would be an attempt to grind down the concrete flat with a big machine, this would be a more feasible approach but is expense on the contractor and more labor they are probably not willing to do because the puddles are not excessive. Now if you had a huge birdbath and your shoe got soaked when you stepped in it then that would be more realistic to expect that from them. On a different note, slope matters, you want it away from the house normally. I notice you have a floor drain on the last picture, is there a reason for it to not pitch away from the house that we dont know about? What is the purpose of the drain?

we tore out a landscaping bed for more seating. Sadly we are too far into our project with our landscape guy, paid for concrete already, and quite honestly have been second guessing some of his suggestions. The existing concrete that you see is in the process of being ground down bc it had a brick “veneer” over the concrete pool deck that was crumbling. We decided to chip it off and grind down. Thus, the overlay product once all concrete is poured, so new and old concrete with match. Make sense?