For a possible new version that also accounted for ways and relations, I first looked at augmented diffs. But every time I try to use them, I regret it.
So I started writing "changechange": a script that keeps track of references and enriches official osmChange files with geometries and references.
https://github.com/Zverik/changechange
It would not lead to 100 MB minutely diffs, like in Overpass, but enough to keep track of changes and maintain filtered extracts.
Didn't have resources to finish though.
Regarding mapping statistics, we are still down to counting nodes and ways. For a mapping party in 2021 I spent three weeks experimenting with something better.
OSM Changes Counter is not well documented, but can count changes to objects of a given type, split them by city, apply weights (e.g. tagged node is worth more than a road way).
It also correctly counts roads splits and merges to output results in km — I think it's the only tool in all OSM that does that.
https://github.com/Zverik/osm-changes-counter
Regarding mapping statistics, we are still down to counting nodes and ways. For a mapping party in 2021 I spent three weeks experimenting with something better.
OSM Changes Counter is not well documented, but can count changes to objects of a given type, split them by city, apply weights (e.g. tagged node is worth more than a road way).