James sounds a little jaded, and he is probably bored by most "tourist" caves. i suspect he may have also forgotten what it's like to be Intro level, or is at least neglecting to put himself in your shoes and recall that stage of his development as a cave diver.
I still recall Little River as being very cool when I first started cave diving and it was one of the caves I took my Cavern and Intro training in. My perception of it has admittedly changed over the years, especially the last 3 years post full cave, but I still enjoy diving Little River, I just enjoy it further back and differently.
With the flow down you should be able to reach the large line arrow on the gold line at the start of the merry go round and serpentine tunnels if you have a decent SAC. That's a navigational decision so it's as far as you can go at intro anyway. You probably won't be in deco on a first dive, but you could be pushing it on a second dive.
Little River is used for training at Intro level and it is sees fairly heavy traffic, so the front part does get that used look. Once you are full cave and start staging or scootering the dive, you can get off the main line and get back where it's still a brunette and it becomes a lot more interesting.
Little River is like many higher flow caves in N FL - it is fairly low silt in the mainline/high flow areas, but can be very silty out of the flow and off the mainline. There are a couple smaller, almost sidemount, tunnels just past the cavern and you *might* be tempted to run your primary there to tie off to them. Don't. unlike the mainline they can get snug and they can quickly go zero viz if you are not very careful, and doing it cleanly takes some skill in side mount and is almost impossible to do cleanly in back mount. LR had a reputation as a killer cave in the 60's and 70's and those tunnels were part of the reason it got that reputation. Leave them alone until you are at lot further along in your development.