1. I'll reduce the enemy HP, some of them are too strong, but if you get lucky and get a spread upgrade it makes it easier, I don't want the player to kill everything on screen but it does get easier if you focus 1 spiral and stay away from the other. But It is possible to ride the middle though and not kill any of them.
2. The framerate is important, if it is too far below 60 it will make player movement choppy. I can add a frame counter to UI, and try to reduce the movement delay, the only reason for the tiny delay is because I was able to abuse the windows cursor when moving it fast which makes the ship instantly teleport enough pixels to cheat the game.
3. For the red enemies, you want to move slowly while they are shooting, and faster when in their cooldown, that way their volley is confined and doesn't trap you.
Do you think your framerate is going well under 60? I will try to optimize game performance if that is the issue.