I don't know how dark you were considering, but in general, he's correct. Middle of the road colors will almost always fare better than the extremes. They might also be easier to touch up if you have a mishap.

Backrow, I'm not sure I would fertilize them except with compost or mulch and I would hope for the best. They might have another flush in them this Fall if they get a move on. So sad the yard guy did that. Maybe the fertilizer would be OK but it is a bit late.

Few things are going on in your pictures, pitting is one of them, it's a series of small pits or craters on the taped surface. The pits are small air bubbles that were not properly filled. Air bubbles are the result of overmixing or undermixing drywall compounds... they also could appear on a wet surface if insufficient pressure is applied when smoothing the drywall compound. The image with the crack is shrinkage... Most likely when they did the 2nd coat, the 1st coat was still damp, when that happens drywall compound could shrink excessively and as the compound dries it shrinks and cracks where the compound is thickest. That said, it's a sloppy taping job, they created more work for themselves. I'm sure they will fix it and they will sand everything out (wet sanding or dust controlled sanding would be the best to eliminate all that dust) and they will touch everything up, so wait until they are done with the 3d coat and see how everything looks before painting. Good luck

I've been using the same computer guy for a number of years.....he's an independent. He charges a flat $50 rate, whether it takes a few days to fix it, or it's a quick fix. I think that's a good deal. Yesterday I was trying to do a zoom call.....never done one before, and my camera kept freezing. It froze the whole time. I googled and noodled around trying to fix it and I finally called my guy. I told him I could probably uninstall the driver but didn't know how to do that (as per suggestions). He told me how to do it, and what I did was roll the driver back to the previous update and it's working. We talked about various things while I was doing this....the election etc. This fixed the issue, my video was working and he laughingly said to send him a $50 cheque. I told him I absolutely will pay him and he told me not to, it was a quickie fix over the phone and he knows I'll be in whenever I need to buy or have anything repaired. Anyway, I did send him a $25 e-transfer and told him in the message that I couldn't have done it without him. I just talked to him to make sure he got it and he told me he didn't accept it, that it was something simple over the phone and he didn't feel right taking my money.