Thanks for the reply! Always nice to get a real dissection like this.
I see your reasoning with the whole sans-difficulty-gradient thing. For me, I guess those games just aren't my cup of raspberry chai (I didn't like Dread much, more of an OSR person and less of a storygames person generally) but to each their own.
If you did ever expand this, I'd love to hear more about how exactly playing a cell works, and what sorts of things are inside.