Thanks mate, this is excellent and thorough feedback! This is the real value of the jam for me.
I suspect you are correct with the mining delay; given the challenge of the game is not time-based but turn based, the mining delay kills the flow. I think it was leaning a little on resource collection games that try to add a little bit of tactility and realism to mining, and a quasi-incremental thing, but to do that well here you'd need automation or real-time play. There was also an intent to research 'picks' to make mining faster as the game progresses as a pacing thing. That is definitely the risk with trying to stuff several different genres and playstyles into one.
Nailed the observation with the visual noise in the terminal! One of those tiny QOL things I just didnt get to.
As you say, both are easy to patch down to a quicker pace and more visually appealing approach in an 0.3. Feedback like this is a great motivator to continue with a postjam release.