Oh... I'm sorry to hear you didn't like it : ( Yes, indeed the game is designed to be difficult - but you can finish it, if you buy extra lifes and shields and try to not get hit. You hold a button to carry items (like Mario does with shells!) and bumping makes it fall of to add chaos (again, intended). Projectiles are meant to be avoided, not shielded from.
Enemies refusing to be picked up sounds like a bug, though! You should be able to pick all of them.
So yes, all in all it may be a bit on the difficult side? Have you tried playing with a friend in local coop? You can save each other and only miss a life if both of you die.
What worries me is the mention to controls. What is it you didn't like? We tried to tune them to be tight and felt that running, climbing and jumping where done easily... but we may be wrong! Same with difficulty, maybe we have to generate way less enemies or add difficulty settings...
In any case thank you a lot for your review! Helps us understand how people feel about the game :D