So what are your thoughts on the variations in the ''dock'' ?
Do you mean league boat /victory chest, or expeditions?
The league boat rewards are very cluttered with junk, enough that it reduces the incentives to climb medals, especially once you have permanently maxed food and gold with walls done. In dynasty three, I only get something useful from it a few times a week. But that isn't new. And victory chests are very similar.
The dock expeditions are less useful than pre museum. Given the percentage of supplies required vs researchers / benefactors, every expedition with a researcher / benefactor as the reward is a waste after a certain point. One of those expeditions used to give a free peace treaty instead. I objected when they did it, but care less than with other things because it requires workers that I have better uses for. The random bonus reward has never had much chance of being good - rarely crowns, mostly piles of leather or fur.
This game is suffering badly from a proliferation of resources to collect, most of which you can't get predictably by regular play. The museum added 5 different resources, 3 of which cannot be produced on your base or gotten from attacking. And the archive has 4 now, all less general purpose replacements for crowns. Since the museum and archive came out we have 7 new things to collect that can't be gotten from battles. That seriously dilutes the reward pool in the boats, the chests, and now the ads.