Prestige is generally a form of meta-progression. It can be required, but that's different from the game pushing you to do it at a specific time or hard locking you out of further progress until you do.
I think I understand Prestige should not lock main progression, it should be something player wants to do in order to ____… Like if you are digging a hole, its digging with a shovel then with a prestige you can dig with a bulldozer, but you can dig ether way to your goal.
I will think about this further and push update, this is good feedback thank you!