Thank you so much! This is such a fair criticism, we thought about it as well, and we definitely agree with you, eventually it is possible to survive indefinitely even with the drain. But in general I like the drain as it forces you to always be in a rush, you can't wait, time does not stop, and you are constantly fighting it. I think this leads to fun play patterns, the sacrifice to pay is that sometimes you die even by playing perfectly, but even this, as the game is meant to be Speedrunned, is rather a "make the most out of the limited time you have".
As for the progression, it is definitely not easy at all to find good numbers that don't let you unlock everything at once, removing an important aspect of discovery of new mechanics, but at the same time not feeling like a grind, which I despite in general.
But again this is a very delicate balance (eheh)