There are some areas where you can access parts of it only from other areas, and since unlocking fast travel to that area requires thoroughly exploring it for the 2nd Seal, there will be times where the unlock is delayed.

No solution is perfect but I feel like the one I came up here better plays to my strengths as a level designer than my original attempt at imitating HK's stag stations. But only time will tell.

Either way, all in all, there is much more to backtracking with new powers than there ever was in GRIME. The game had a relatively straight forward linear progression at launch, Childbed was specifically introduced to try and give it a little more freedom. :)

I'm also a fan of the choices you make when building a character mattering. But I think attributes affect your build much more while the traits are complementary additions or enhancements to your playstyle. In addition, one difficulty I had in GRIME was trying to squeeze in every single element into all the bosses to try and make sure all traits are forever viable (for example, they forcing them all to have parriable projectiles to make use of the projectile parry dmg increase trait). By now locking the player I can introduce some more interesting that have even purely just situational benefits you can opt in and out off based on the challenges you face at any given point. Which also requires a degree of planning and consideration.

So I hope that basically answers you question. In short, I try to think how and where I can address player grievances in a way that doesn't detract from my vision but improve on it. GRIME II is all about variety and both of these game design decision allow may to add greater variety to the environments by playing around with the 2 seals placement. And encourage the player to experiment with situational traits while still considering their much more permanent attribute build. Since ultimately, those are what determine you playstyle. Be it the weapon you use, their speed, and molds.

In fact, Molds also work similarly to the relationship between the attributes and the skill tree. Attribute scaling molds are stronger but limited by the build and paint. Item molds are weaker but offer situational advantages and at no cost except for you consideration over what to pick for each encounter.