Thanks N!
I added the "- hope" grip in later because a personal goal I had for this was to try and make moment-to-moment decisions interesting. Without the hope grip, I found myself constantly moving towards the powerup grips without much thought. As soon as I added the "- hope" grip, things felt more interesting because there were also things to avoid. I hear you on the detraction, so that's something for me to think about.
Ragdoll definitely not intentionally exploding... wish I'd had more time to get to the bottom of that :)