Thanks for trying the game and for the feedback! It's good to hear that the game was interesting enough to try some times to learn. And congratulation on getting so far! I also think it is starting to be quite difficult at that point.
In the second paragraph you have some very interesting points . We didn't think about the player wanting to "discard" DNA strands. We should have just playtested the game early but I was thinking it to be unplayable without some features that I now hear that you for example did not use at all. The more projects I have done the more I've started to realize why everyone is constantly talking about playtesting and prototyping.