The Orville

I’m excited for this!

Don't be. Just accept the fact that MacFarlane doesn't care to an amount he claimed he was caring. He'll continue to put everything else ahead of The Orville.

I don’t mind longer waits between seasons

Well, I do and there's a general trend in laziness to make TV shows like they did in the 1980s and 1990s. Streaming gave us customers the option to watch when we want but it gave the producers the loophole no longer care about schedules and it shows pretty much everywhere. Just look how few episodes of Stranger Things or Attack on Titan have been released since the shows launched.

I do feel for the cast and crew having to wait for McFarland to write the episodes himself. But I think I’d prefer to keep the artist tied to his vision rather than handing it over to a board of writers.

That "artist" thing is an excuse for paid service providers to weasel out of promises to paying customers. When Star Trek was still seriously good, they managed to squeeze out 26 episodes per year. Sure, there may have been the occasional dumb holodeck episode but if it's only 4 out of 26, nobody really cares.

The Orville already had a bunch of writers, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Orville#Episodes.