it's great, but having to go to Kunming South (another 1 hour by subway + necessary buffer time 20-30 minutes) makes the trip length roughly the same?

ah no, my bad, it indeed goes through xuefulu of course!

Just found it in the link down at baike.baidu.com/view/4112461.htm

according to the illustration though, line 4 will not go through xuefulu, it will be the line 1 starting/finishing there

Are there any approximate dates for finishing the other subway lines?