All very valid points.
To the first point: Lbh pna'g ybbx ng gur qrpbe vgfrys, bayl gur guvatf lbh'ir orra erzvaqrq bs. (I think Desuovi had the same issue--i.e., that it wasn't obvious that something had changed at that point--and I think I need to telegraph it.)
As for the rest: I think it falls very much into the "scope of a Game Jam game" category; I'd love to do more (keep an eye out for more parser games from me, somewhere down the line!), but the limited scope of the game jam sparked the idea you saw, rather than something larger with more pieces hidden behind more things. Still thinking about ways to incorporate wordplay into a parser game. (Other than just pointing people to Emily Short's Counterfeit Monkey and admitting it's the acme of the genre.)