There's a lot of questions...

The eye mesh you show above is just about perfect in my opinion. Plus you have the cover completely enclosed, which I like very much and you rarely see. In fact both the cover and eyeball both look water tight which is great. It's a little thing but covers certain situations you might not expect.

I prefer a receded pupil like you have in your image. It doesn't effect any realism and makes morphing a lot easier; octopus, rectangular, and star shaped pupils are easy to make with such a pupil.

The square grid is much much better than the pole. I'd say the topology you have for all parts is about ideal, at least for my preferences.

As far as the hard rim goes you can just slide those loop a bit further apart from each other. It can be done as a morph but it's probably best to bake that softness into the base topology before you UV.

Very well done odf, perfect imo really.