We've definitely considered adding pickups as a way to force the player to choose between going straight for the exit or trying to get some kind of bonus for taking a detour, but utlimately we decided to keep the scope of the game to a minimum so we could finish within the timeframe we gave ourselves.
We'll very likely be revisiting the core gameplay and especially the character controller based on the problems you described. N+ was certainly a game we had in mind when making this one.
Thank you very much for the detailed feedback, and good luck to you too!