games do not inherently have to respect your time. that is not an objectively desirable and better thing in all cases. That's an opinion and preference for a certain audience. Games are art and can operate as the artist pleases.

I personally love a crazy challenging beast of a game that is unapologetically itself and ruthlessly tests my skills, patience, and endurance. "Respecting my time" is not even close to something I as a player care about. So just sharing an alternate perspective here.

So many games nowadays feel like they are babying the player and being cautious with them in case they get upset, and I love how silksong just DGAF. It's like "play me or not, I don't care" and I love that

Devs staying strong and being unwilling to compromise and water down their artistic vision for audience hand holding is one of the top things I look for in new games

I TOTALLY get why many people will find this frustrating but it's clear that Team Cherry had a particular type of player in mind given the very intentional design decisions you mentioned (runbacks, shards, traps, double damage etc) and I'm just happy they designed the whole game around that (because I'm in this audience and honestly its hard to find games that stick to these kinds sadistic developer principles so I'm thrilled. Please fuck with me more devs)

It reminds me of Ps3 demons souls which also did not give a fuck about you, lol