Thanks for all the input, Palo!
Palette Anims: I understand the palette changers seem high-maintenance.... The rules stated that you could copy the sprites and change them in any way that PAL and PALT could change them, so even if you didn't animate them that way, you could store out the frames and change them as if you did. This was all based on trying to cram all possible games into ONE spritesheet. If/when I do the next one, I will just provide more than one cart for the assets, but that was the artifice. It got like a dozen more other variety sprites from that. Also, there weren't that many palette animating sprites, really. More of "a variety-based thing to try if you want". But I totally get they may have seems daunting and/or impractical.
Too detailed: Yeah, I tried to strike a balance between representational or monochrome/recolor me sprites, also just used ones I had lying around. I decided to focus on a main character with TONS of animations, to see all the different ways people might use the same character. Some uses were great, but one problem with that is platformers can be hard to make! So then that's half a sprite page that a few people used. Will have more characters next time.
ARG: The mystery is VERY LIGHT (some people solved it within an hour) and just meant for interest. The added assets aren't that much really. Again, tried to have it as an interesting facet. Some folks dug it, some didn't. But it didn't much affect the games, really. I will probably do it again, I just like little mysteries.
Music: okay, I barely understand music, but if other people do and have ideas how to change it other than "have more available", I'm all ears. But that was just generosity on Gruber's part. Lafolie made a bunch of sounds. I think actually the sounds were too limited probably.
Outside of Pico-8: was intending to do that, but ran outta time. Also, I kinda really like having a launcher, so we'll see!
Outreach: Yeah, that would be good. I wanted this first public jam I ran to be cozy so it wouldn't be a ton of maintenance, and well, I could make mistakes and learn before I did a BIG jam. I did try to advertise it a bit myself and such, but any bigger and it might've been too much.
Anyway, thanks again, for the input, will think about it all for next time!