Thanks for your feedback! I agree with your criticism of the "mindlessly rush" strategy, although a poorly placed shield piece can block you into a bad configuration.
The art is actually fully rendered 3d, and it looks really cool if the camera tilts. Maybe we could get a nice graphical improvement just from tilting the camera angle slightly.
But innovative and unique is what we were primarily aiming for, so I'm happy to hear your feedback that we hit the mark in that regard!