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Thanks so much for trying Bling Hustle!  Everyone pretty much agrees it's a nightmare for new players.   I try to implement systems to make navigation easier on the players, but they don't help if the players don't know about them.  For instance, the "air brake" system you suggested basically already exists as the "Autobrake" (Z key) , which automatically directs your thrusters to nullify your velocity relative to your nav target.    Similarly, the "Autopilot" (A key) helps the player traverse vast empty spaces and slow down at the destination without needing to spam click the thrusters.   And the "Booster" items (used with B key) can be used to quickly accelerate (or decelerate) in any direction without needing to spam the thrusters (1 booster is equivalent to 32 thruster clicks if I remember correctly).

The problem, as you've clearly seen, is that the player needs to know about these things and how to use them.  Many games in the genre like "Elite: Dangerous", "Eve Online", or the "X" series expect players to spend lots of time learning how to play.   However, I'm aiming for a faster paced experience than those games, and yet I still want all the depth and complexity of those nerd-gated space games.  I'm confident I've achieved much faster pacing, but the learning curve is just as bad.  The tutorial / text dump was never the solution I wanted, but I thought it was better than nothing.  However, I'm starting to think that maybe I should delete the tutorial entirely and just tell people they need to read instructions or watch a video out of game.

If you do give the game another go, I'd strongly suggest trying the "Pocket Universe" option, which provides a much more action-oriented game without needing to worry about navigation through vast empty spaces.  The physics is still basically newtonian, but there's no gravity and the distances are all very short.