Amongst other things, you said "An open-minded review of what we can see on the surface of Mars will show -- I believe -- that vast regions of Mars have experienced extensive relatively recent "heat release" events involving explosive venting of ice, water and steam, floods of lava, surface collapse, and so on. These events may be continuing to this day. "

Unfortunately for your thesis, if these areas had been active "recently" then they would be free of microcraters. Careful examination of most of the tuff-ring features of Mars shows them plastered with small craters, leading to ages of hundreds to thousands of millions of years.

Although there is ongoing volcanism on Mars it is very rare and infrequent. Lots of people are looking for recent flows and cones but nothing has been reported in the scientific literature. (The youngest flows are 2-20 Ma old, not Ka)