Thanks for giving it a try! The shop being locked behind the regions is simply to prevent a potential soft lock, since the gems are currently finite. It would be possible to spend gems on upgrades (that are infinite) and then lock yourself out of buying new regions, which would then prevent being able to ascend. Maybe there is a better way of handling this. But in my experience it does not take long to unlock the regions.
As for the lovers still being in the pool, I have heard this feedback before. I added a mystic effect to reduce rerolling lovers, which is quite useful, but I understand if that is too late in the game to be appreciated. At the moment I am unsure how to handle this, but will likely make some sort of adjustment or new feature to still give some progression to be made when you dream of a lover, as you suggest.
I like your ideas, and have noted them for when I start working on the next update.
Thanks again for the feedback!