Agreed on both counts, and as I said on the game page and some comments already, this is entirely due to lack of time. X)
The latter levels were conceived in a rush and reduced to tutorial / proof of concept. (And I confess at least one mistake, in level Minefield, where the lower-left sunny tile should be placed one tile away.) On the contrary, Face Value has very good level design, but… these guys were four level designers. XD Kudos to them, but be understanding of the manpower/time issue!
mindDie, on the other hand, has good design with a single designer (who did not even use a level editor).
Actually, each puzzle game I saw had its strengths and weaknesses. I think mine has some originality, which is what I strove for; the initial brainstorming took me a lot of time, and resulted in less for the final level design. I admit I could have even better managed my time and come up with a better game, though, but that’s how things went. I would say the current game is somewhere in the 75%–85% range of what I originally intended, which is fair. :)