Thanks for all the feedback! Ahah, I totaly get the urge to try to beat all the monsters alone, and really glad you took some time to test out the different options!
Agree with all the cons you listed, and just as you guessed it's mostly a case of not having enough time (or not being skilled enough yet to develop/draw things faster/more efficiently...). I was also very intent on not overscoping. But optimizing the game for better performance and having slightly different endings based on the number of remaining knights were actually the two first things I wanted to do after finishing this version of game.