That makes sense, I think it was a good decision
With practice I think players will get comfortable with controlling speed using the slow fall mechanic. With a couple tweaks it would work well. A button to respawn at the beginning of the level, normal deaths respawn you to where you died from (so you can do many tried quickly without getting frustrated), and a visual indicator of your speed (number on GUI?) to help you learn to controliit
You all did a great job especially considering the corruption issues a 48 hour jam can throw at you