Thanks so much for the detailed feedback. Absolutely agree with your points and something I intend to refine post jam. Biggest issue I was running into was the time constraints of the jam doing it all myself while working a full time job is tough and not making the items so overpowered that you were effectively invincible. Early testing I had some items at 2x or 3x effectiveness, but it allowed me to do full screen clears of pegs when the right cascade of conditions triggered. The procedural generation algo definitely needs more tuning and more content to socket in to get the right pacing that you describe as well.
Thanks again for the feedback and I will take it to heart when working on this more in the future!