Really appreciate your thoughts as this is a genuinely exceptional review. Thank you especially for the bug report, which is exactly right and correctly diagnosed . The denial is your browser, but the endless "MOUSE COOLING DOWN" is my bug: that message was written for Chrome's one-second re-lock cooldown, and it fires, lying, when a browser blocks pointer lock permanently.
I will patch the post-jam build to detect repeated denial and say so plainly. I'm looking at a no-lock aiming fallback per your suggestion. If you remember which browser/setup you were on if you have a moment. I really appreciate you rating it fairly despite the issue.