Thanks for playing and the detailed feedback!
By the pixel grid I tried to hide my horrible art with some displacement of the pixels (simply lower resolution).
I did not expect many people to go in to the upgrade section of the game unless they really wanted to. The game is about exploring different build paths. You are still right, there is a lot of text and I could have implemented some in to the upgrade itself.
The balancing issue was due to time constrains and that I thought the game would be too hard (after play testing and comments on other games I have submitted in other jams) so I made the game too easy for some.