I've always liked the v1 Timeline most of the TW2K histories. For my next game I plan to use the v1 Timeline, with some adjustments stolen from this campaign:
https://polandcampaign.com/ - specifically Chernenko lasts in office slightly longer, and his protege Grigoriy Romanov succeeds him rather than Gorbachev. As Romanov is a hardline party member who didn't want to compromise, I use his ascension as a means to justify rigid crackdowns on pro-democracy / independence movements and suppression of Solidarity in Poland.
I also like the details in "The Storm in Germany" and "Accidents and Misunderstandings" to setup the Sino-Soviet war and the coup in the DDR. The details about the Persian Gulf war and it's influence on Soviet military reforms is also good, I feel like it makes the WP armies into better adversaries.
Once the game gets rolling, I'll be changing a lot of the details about Operation Reset and other canon, in part because some of my players have seen the old canon versions too many times.