Huh. Not into trans stuff, so I was definitely intending to turn down any actual romantic relationship with her (though never got the chance in this version) but Nea is cute af, not gonna lie. I may have spent a couple extra moments knocking Eric around.
It looks like the game's a bit low on content, but it also looks like it's a bit of a slow burn. One thing that does make me wonder is how much stuff is gated behind Nea and Evelyn - if people aren't into trans/traps or lolis, are they kinda fucked or what? It's like the whole VN centers around MC's relationship, romantic or otherwise, with Nea.
I guess it's cool though since the story's shockingly good for a porn game.
It's only at v3 though - so much more content to come.
Nea isn't bound to the patch, you can always choose her to be a LI, friend or ignored.
While there previously was some content that had requirements from the patch, if I remember correctly, those should all be gone now.
From a technical perspective, the handling of patch content without the patch is done by the game just skipping those events when you click on them right now - so no separate branches (same if you ignore Nea completely).
The events being completely separated from other event chains/characters also leads to the 'problem' right now, that MCs interactions with the teacher seem a little odd because they don't really fit his personality as portrayed up until now. It feels like that character should come later in the game - but with no requirements in place to start a path or certain events, you can jump right in.
And you're right, while Luxee added options to avoid Nea, as far as I know, this VN is the result of Luxee wanting to do something with/about a trans character. So while you can ignore her now, I would suggest staying her friend if you don't want her to be a LI, so you can still experience her part of the VN.
And you can 'turn down' a romantic relationship with Nea in the current version - by not peeking at her when she changes at your apartment. Not saying you might also be able to do/redo that again later on though.