Hey there! And first up sorry for not replying sooner. I don't check back on itch.io very often, because... well, I don't get much activity here in the first place. YouTube, Twitter and Discord are the best places to ask questions and leave comments.
I'm genuinely a little surprised anyone who liked the first game wouldn't like this one, considering how intentionally similar the base gameplay and structure are and how much more polished the art and controls are. To address the two main points you mentioned, though:
Enemies only giving points the first time they die is, in fact, an anti-farming method, and it's not theoretical or pre-emptive either. It was a change recommended by a beta tester who was already death farming points. The best thing I can recommend is honestly just playing through the game, not taking the low ranks you get "personally," and coming back to grind out higher ranks when you're done with everything else. They're MEANT to be very hard, and nothing at all important will be locked behind them. Collect as many of the black gems as you can and you're good as gold for the postgame this time around.
The dodge... now THAT'S a complicated one. It's actually been buffed AND nerfed, in recent closed beta builds. It's now faster and covers more ground than ever, on top of gaining a zero-gravity effect... BUT, it's also had its invincibility frames removed. This's been a controversial change, but while designing some later bosses I realized I didn't like how overcentralizing a universal instant iframe button is. It made a lot of enemy movement and projectile patterns feel like they just don't matter at all, because you didn't need to physically avoid anything or manage your movement much. Not sure if that sounds better or worse to you, but if the snappy speed burst was the part you really missed, that might be an improvement?