Thank you so much for the feedback! I'd like to write a dev log tonight if I have time, but to respond to these points:
- bucket fills are all full opacity in our WIP build (except sea, which has a bug)
- auto drop needs love, and scaling ball dropping over time is something we're actively working on. Like even if you crank auto up all the way, it's still really really slow. We need to find the right amount of time to reasonably spend in a level and tune to that. TLDR i totally hear you! Hopefully the next release will be better.
- New build has earlier levels stay relevant! Prestige is coming, and currency/unlocks will be shared across levels. We need to test the heck out of it, but I'm hoping that particular problem will be solved.