> That just my view of the aesthetics…
As wind turbines aren't a very rare sight, I think it's reasonable to assume that most have already seen a wind farm in person. Newer generations in Germany also only flash when planes are nearby.
> Nobody ever bothers to talk about what will be done with these football field sized blades (I’m guessing at least 100k of them by now?) when they’re decommissioned?
At least I've seen a lot of talk about it, most of it ending in "we're trying to reuse them for something else with mixed success" or "recycling is possible, but not yet done on a large scale, but we hope it'll increase".
> do you think any of the companies who signed these 30 year leases will be around to de-com the turbines when they start falling apart? (Answer is no)
At least in Germany, where wind turbines from 20+ years ago are being replaced by newer ones (due to the much higher power output), this hasn't been an issue yet. In contrast to oil and gas sites, after the wind turbine has seen it's EOL the land isn't worthless for the purpose, but a new wind turbine can be installed. Thus for most sites this isn't much of an issue. This isn't to say that regulation is a bad idea (and I'm wondering why leases were signed without a clause to obligate the operates to remove them), but I don't see the fundamental point of conflict, since the land isn't worthless afterwards for energy purposes.
> Then there’s the never ending problem of freezing…
At least your first two sources suggest that electric heating works (but unfortunately not if it's doable from the energy generated by the wind turbine itself, but I assume that to be the case, otherwise it doesn't make any sense), and the third suggests a fault of the power connection of the initial fault (and quite a bit of tabloid rambling that I didn't read, I have to admit).