Appreciate your critique. I can totally see your point!
I think it comes down to what the game really wants to be. During development, I was constantly torn between making a fast paced "against the clock" game, an exploratory "let's find all stars" game, and a skill based "repeat until lucky" game. In the end, I opted for exploring a mix of all these for the game jam entry =)
But you're right. For a full game, it should be one of those, and commit 100% to it.
Hope you still had a bit of fun playing the other levels!