I'm glad you loved Origins!
I've seen the No Boo mazes at other CF parks. They're bright enough to be clearly visible to anyone close by. Unless you're going down an area absolutely flooded with fog, they stand out from quite a distance.
I'm glad you had a great time! I'm going mid-October and will be going for to Scary Farm at least two days (I'll be in the area for a week, and I'll also be popping into DL-though not OBB unless tickets are miraculously available-and USH for Horror Nights).
While I can't find a straight answer on the Knott's site, it's looking like if you have a parking pass for a regular Knott's pass, it works for Scary Farm. I don't believe the Scary Farm pass includes parking by itself, though.
I can't speak for the maze that lost guns last year, but I did get to do Special Ops: Infected several times. It was fun, but it felt more like lazer tag than a Haunt maze to me. I know some people definitely appreciated it and felt it gave the event more variety, but ultimately I go in a Haunt maze to get scared, not to play lazer tag. The line was also slower than for other mazes, because as with any lazer tag scenario, there are only so many guns.
Haven't experenced Grimoire with or without a preshow, but the few times I did The Depths with its preshow I thought it was more trouble than it was worth. The retired Paranormal Inc. had a GREAT preshow that was totally worth it, but part of the reason it worked in that context was because people would be funneled into one of two different paths into the rest of the maze. I can understand the desire to keep people moving through the mazes as quickly as possible, so I can understand sacrificing preshows if they aren't good enough to justify their existence.
Knott's has had more friendly staff than Disney for at least the past seven years in my experience. I'm glad you had such a great time!