Ah, interesting... It's a difficult thing to balance for sure. Thanks for the feedback. I've uploaded a new patch that should be a bit of a better middle ground.
I think I'll try to avoid difficulty options if I can, as the machine isn't really the main focus of the game anyway... I'd prefer to try and find a good difficulty balance, but it's always an option I guess. Hopefully the alarm making the bar decrease slower should help players who were struggling before.
Thanks for the comment.