I'm glad it'll be helpful! I think the tweaking helped a lot with the overall feel once I figured it out, so I remember the game positively.
Perhaps your own point was proven! As for the branches, it currently *feels* like it should have colliders because the of the colors. I kind of like zooming around at terminal velocity, but I also wonder if I would be encouraged to learn the map better, which requires experimenting with fading the branch into the background and colliders respectively. I specifically say feels because ya'll can control how it feels, y'know? I think my greatest concern there is that if I'm aiming for a green fly, and I bounce the other way, I might be frustrated. However, if I can recalculate to hit a green fly on opposite side of the screen it could be fun!
They may be complementary. I like the idea of the hazardous ladybugs, they're really well designed (interesting to look, nice deep red satisfying contrast, and pretty pointy sharp). If going slow, they did subtly encourage me to navigate around them with my jetpack, which added to the skill-check fun that I imagined the branches would do (think flappy bird). If going fast, I simply did not have time to either react or rotate fast enough for it to be a skill check. In this sense, perhaps doubling down on the skill check - some sort of air strafe and camera slowly moving in front so you can see what's ahead, then if you hit one making it a really satisfying challenge to try and recover might add a lot, like a mid air crash you can struggle out of if skilled enough could work. From here, making distinct ladybug formations along parts of map you can learn and predict would add to what seems like the intended second layer of progression through map knowledge. Just spitballing.
I don't think so. Right now I don't feel points are a valuable enough reward. I focused on getting the highest round, managing my time, and having fun wrangling. In fact, I was wondering why I could wrap around more than three times if it didn't get darker than red, felt weird. I can see some of your vision with style points though. Once the hazards issues is fixed, I'd like to be rewarded for chaining yellow flies. First, try making it really obvious when you're about to fully wrap around one (radial dial?). Second, maybe some speed boost each time to really make up for the lost time. Or some side objective. Some other reward I already care about since it's fun already.
Perhaps only I ignored the points though, watch others play too! Hope this gives some ideas