Ironically I came to the same rules change as you more or less. I roll a d6 on every action and spend +1 air if I roll a 1. This makes useless items like the condenser valve more useful as it reduces risk of moving three times with 3 rolls into 1 time with 1 roll. I found this made the game just tense enough that I could still play it safe and be fine, but made taking risks actually risky.
After playing some more, a few more notes. Page numbers are wrong in the table of contents in books 1. Specifically tools are on page 14 not 13.
Also I for the life of me can't figure out what the spectromagnetic camera does? It just lets you get all the rewards from a room each time you visit? so when I set it up in the toolshed I can just get infinite items by walking back and forth?