There were even funny 2 footnotes to read. A really good idea is to work in ways of giving the player more information about the setting while at the same time adding garnish. While I feel that a 'smell ' command is too much work to be worthwhile, I'm amenable to a plain old 'smell' command that only applies to what room the player is in. It's not that much work, and it's an enjoyable feature. You can do the same thing with 'listen'.
Quotations are good too.
In Inform, the box command is a really handy way to do this. So, I will use that same name to refer to text adventures from 1-2 hours in length. If I can find the post, I'll reproduce the relevant bits here, with his permission. Otherwise you're stuck with just what I can think of to add. The first thing to remember is that you don't have any time to waste.