Thank you so much for the praise. The ramping tension and maximization was definitely planned on our part and getting the game feel right was important for us.
I do agree that the shop can be really hit or miss, and while I think some randomness is good for the rogue-like formula, I agree bypassing that makes it more fun. We didn't have time to add re-rolls to the shop but I think that could help combat this a fair bit.
We do have plans of more features we could add and hope to polish this up some more!