Thanks for feedback :)
I agree to all that You said.
First of all - I'm planning to make this not just puzzles game, but add elements of adventure to it.
About tutorial:
Text there to tell player how to play, i don't think i would be able to do different in time limit. I think about separate location which will show how to use powers with voice lines and images with highlighted button on screen, but i would do many experiments with it. I would definitely look on games that you mentioned to have good examples in mind.
About limiting - yeah, this bars have nothing to do in this prototype. Should've left only health bar. Didn't think it through. In future with adventure elements and some action that have some sort of time limit they will have much more meaning and will not give only frustration.
Initially i wanted to mix different styles, like you described, in cycling, but there was a problem with meshes. For example all three walls have different width and fence is a bit displaced. Fixing it is pretty time consuming, so i decided to just recolor items for demo.
And yes, swapping will bring extra mechanics :) But this will required much more time and work, that i had :)
My essay isn't quite big as yours, but still an essay :) Thanks for luck, I would definitely return to this text(and maybe to you in discord xD) more than one time during development. And good luck to you too!