Interesting feedback, thank you. :)
The bug catching, fishing, and taming will be expanded more yeah. The first two not greatly so but thet will serve as collectables, with unique variants being found throughout the world, they'll be a way to earn money, and you'll probably be able to decorate your house with them. It's meant to be something akin to Animal Crossing in that regard. I can see how it would be seen as adding them in for the sake of it, but their purpose is to demonstrate the more tranquil aspects of the game. I'm merging aRPG gameplay with a sort of Animal Crossing slice of life genre. Taming will see a lot more improvements as pets will have happiness, skills, learn tricks, etc. They're not meant to be a core part of the gameplay though, just a fun little thing if you like having a pet.
I should add some items to the blacksmith though, yes. To me, shop vendors in games aren't really where I get unique items, they're usually nothing special about them so I didn't think about adding much to them, just a way for you to acquire a common item if you missed it in the forest, or somehow lost it. I'll probably make a new weapon or two to add there. Won't take from the forest because they're there to show you front and center that a wide variety of weapon types exists, and you're supposed to choose the one you like best. Not meant as a progression thing.
This isn't a complete vertical slice, to be sure. It's a demo of the features that I think are more essential to the gameplay, being the character interactions, story, and combat. I have a lot more planned that I'll be working on in the next couple of years, but would be beyond the scope of this demo. Some will get added in later, but I don't want to put everything into the demo.
A time mechanic is intended, yes. :) It's already implemented, just disabled for the demo because it isn't necessary, and I still have to work on the lighting system. It'll affect things like crop growth when that system is in place (just want to say that this isn't a farming game, but you'll have the option to grow higher quality foods for the "potion" crafting system), certain monsters will come out at different times of day, etc.
I can understand the linear frustrations. My thinking was that I only wanted the player to play this demo about 10-15 minutes. If I give them large branching paths then they might get lost and give up before reaching the end. This is just a demo, so I'm thinking most people aren't invested enough to get lost and find their way around as much as they would be in a full game. I wouldn't in a demo at least. When I play a demo, I just want a quick summary of what the game is about. I might create some more branches to explore though, but nothing serious.