These are some of the exact same observations that I've had while learning to the 10% fluency level. German has just been a joy for learning root word associations. Learning just a few root words can yield so much (think "die dienst").

Also nice is seeing a completely new German word in writing and immediately knowing with nearly 100% confidence how it is pronounced.

Compare that to the unfortunate person learning English, which almost seems deliberately designed to trick you with seemingly arbitrary pronunciations.