Fantastic analysis, absolutely agree. The original concept for the game was to have the player win each ring sequentially and score 10 points per ring then a bonus for getting 3 in a row. Unfortunately due to my own time-management failures I quickly realized I didn't have time to make this happen.
The timing is definitely way too tight and frankly I knew this before release but I had already tinkered with it and couldn't afford to spend any more time working on it.
TLDR : You have seen through the thinly veiled rues of my game design. Spinny rings won't be enough to trick you it seems.