Thanks Porkrind, I slipped my game to a buddy and he got me playing it again. Was trying to see if a shotgun only run was viable - seemed to be, although the mob turns into a blob that runs over itself and is pretty horrific. Launcher too imba :) But I always prefer to improve underpowered things than nerf things.
Re: sucking up the orbs, that would be cool and I did have that in mind. Though unfortunately Unity 3D doesn't have the cool Point Effector 2D, which I missed a lot - both my previous GDTV Gamejam entries have used those to slurp up nearby coins / XP.