About the first long jump: I never really bothered to take it out because there was an easy skip probably nobody noticed^^'
About the background: Yeah, I didn't really get that to look as I wanted. What really bothers me tho is that it turned out so dark, I had to make the characters lit up to pop out, destroying the original character design^^'
And finally, about your first point, potential: I really liked the base idea I had so I plan on working it out to a full game later on!