It's really frustrating to get a bad upgrade. With the drops, you can save them for later, but with the give up 30% of your health things, you're just missing out. Maybe make those just upgrade something you have instead of giving you a new one?
And are there any good way to counter the things that improve health on higher difficulties? Do I just have to make sure I have enough firepower to knock them down? I recommend making it so they can't be healed. Or at most, they can heal themselves so you still have to take them out quickly, but they don't heal each other so you don't end up with five in one spot being unstoppable. When you play with waves, that just softlocks it.
Or I guess that's what the bombs were for? Maybe it's on me for not using them because I don't like missing out on the drops.