Thanks for the lengthy feedback, I'll try to share some of my thoughts on the issues you brought up.
The clash: The delay when pushing boxes was an intentional decision and it was not only to give the player weight to their actions, but also as a tool to create puzzles. The emitters (or sentries as i will call them from now on) do not exist purely as an obstacle to be avoided or dodged. They are there to be interacted with and are a part of the puzzle themselves. Making them exist completely within their own bubble as to not disrupt you when you're trying to solve a puzzle would completely undermine their point. They are supposed to exert pressure on the player while solving regular puzzles, and it's something i wanted to achieve with the game from the start. The question these sentries pose should not always be "Am I fast enough to react to them accordingly?" but also "Will i have the opportunity to react accordingly?". They require more than pure reactionary gameplay but also planning through interacting with other puzzle elements (such as pushing boxes). Though not every single room will require that of the player, as some rooms are purely about dodging while some rooms are more about solving a puzzle, but I tried to get a mix of both while making the levels. There might not be enough of the game yet to solidify this concept and get used to this sort of relationship as a player, but I believe with more mechanics and different adjustments, the path to getting familiar with it could be a lot smoother.
The progression: I agree, more rooms to introduce certain mechanics and play around with them more would be great, but unfortunately, game jams just end up being like that where you never get to do fully what you wanted (btw this game had no testing outside of me done up until the last 4 hours before the deadline lol). Every single mechanic did have at least one room where it gets taught to the player but I did plan to make more than just one. As for the example with the button and traps, I agree I could've done one more room right before it with just a simpler version with only traps, though i do not think it is a major problem, since while the level may look intimidating, it is rather easy in execution and the mechanics of each trap would be rather quickly understood by the player. I understand the sentiment that you should assume your player knows nothing about your game, but this game was made in mind with a very specific audience in mind, as well as the difficulty (especially in the later rooms) sets some minimum expectations that I kept in mind while designing those early levels. Also to talk, a little about THAT room that you had trouble with. I agree, I should've made a room right before it that played around with those mechanics in a bit more clear way. But i have to mention that every single mechanic that room expects of you, the game did teach in an earlier room. For example, there was a room where the only way to progress was to block out a stream of bullets from a green sentry just enough as to make a bubble of space further down the stream to walk down it and have enough time to cycle through your elements. That was one of the lessons that one room used, and the other one was simply weaving through openings in the bullet streams, which is a mechanic present throughout the entire game. The trickiest part of it was going through multiple streams of bullets and switching elements while doing so which i admit, I could've introduced in a room before, a little bit better.
The death screen: This one is a bit strange as this is the first time I've heard someone actually complain about the death screen. The death screen, in my opinion, is very quick and seamless and puts you right back at the start of the room. When you die, the thing that killed you also gets highlighted on the death screen, as to let you know what killed you, so next time you can be more aware of it. This is the first time someone thought it was too slow or annoying, as most people specifically commented on it being very satisfying and "fun to die", so I'm not sure as to what to make of this (btw if you spam z you can speed it up).
The text: I agree. These text options were unironically extremely hard to work with, and we didn't think putting more effort into them was worth it, as reading text didn't comprise that much of the game.