Amazing to see your notes! I very much agree with all that you have mentioned.
The salvage is at pretty simple mechanic, meant to make your "useless" items a bit more useful, but currently the payoff is too minimal - i will rework the mechanic slightly on the next update, as it will be used to create powerful trinkets
As for the portal, it is sort of the same thing, it will need rebalancing to make it less tedious to use, while still being expensive as to not make the game too easy
I actually am also planning on a major item rebalancing across the game, as i hope this next version will be the last that changes any of the existing levels in a major way
I am happy that you like the game, Sorry for the bugs, those will of course be fixed!