My experience was similar in that the adjustments were mostly small tweaks. The biggest change was lowering my saddle, which was done in stages to find the height that eliminated back pain.
I guess shortening crank arms is like lowering the saddle at the bottom of the stroke and raising the saddle at the top. Interesting.
The small tweaks made a significant comfort difference on long rides. I would not have come up with that specific set of of small changes on my own.