Thank you, that's a lot of interesting stuff! I agree I also mainly had 3D examples come to mind (like Oblivion or Skyrim), it's usually stemming from physics related issues I guess.
Maybe one key take away could be to start by making other things janky first and leave the controls responsive until I have a clear design in mind. But I also like your idea of some sort of feedback system, that could definitely help making it clear to players that they are on the right path but they need change their approach a bit.
I actually also just remembered a janky mobile game from my childhood all of a sudden. I don't remember the exact name but the whole point was to throw a puppet around (explode it and stuff). I wasn't the biggest fan of the game but there might be something there for me to get inspired by.