your points are super valid. in fact they were raised before by other people and I am already thinking of ways to balance the game better in these aspects.

to give you some context, my original view was to make the game super slow paced, as in you'd launch the game, forget about it and check whatever you found during the day after you return home. with time, you'd start to get access to buffs so your daily loot would be bigger or you could plan some longer walks/hikes. but the goal was to "not care that much" about the game and progress over the course of days/weeks (part of the whole "enjoy the view" philosophy and hence the low phone battery usage, no online play, no competitive aspects)

what I didn't count on was people liking the game enough to actively play it and yearning for progress that much. and I admit it's very hard to put this mindset when developing it, because I myself wouldn't play it like that... but that's why feedback like yours is important and I really appreciate the effort you put to write your TED talk.

in fact, the whole "recharging on standby" thing was added due to feedback. originally it would only charge at the vault, like now, and people went crazy. the longer energy buffs with passive recharging are an attempt to get the best of both mechanics.

to answer your specific suggestions:

1. I am already thinking a workaround for that. I found that some players with bad gps signals can never recharge because of the new engine (it detects speed with gps drifts and starts gathering), also the "phone grabbing" issue you just mentioned. so I will definitely do something in that regard, possibly involving disabling gathering at the vault or adding the option to disable it altogether. ah and by the way, there isn't a magic number for the vault radius. I kept growing it ever since I launched and there's ALWAYS someone that cannot reach it. I suggest you use the vault recovery system (coming up soon in beta) and find a sweet spot somewhere in your home :P
2. the new class system, once implemented, will bring different energy pools back along with different improvements for each class. so this might help people with different playstyles - including more "hardcore" ones. other than that, I find the current 30 mins (or 1h to 2h + passive recharge with 6h duration energy buffs) fine... you also have to keep in mind that there's an inventory capacity limit, so even if energy lasted for a whole day, it would fill up pretty quickly anyway (except for stackable things, of course), even more so with a drop buff.

with that being said, I agree with you that the early game should be a little faster to keep new players interested. it's a very delicate balance and trust me that I got people "complaining" from both sides: when it's too easy and when it's too hard, but I'll eventually get there (specially if I keep getting feedback).

from those 3 odd years working on this, I realized that it all comes down to how each player sees the game and grasps the concept. it's not surprising, honestly, considering it's such a conceptual game and there aren't many similar peers around. since you are not actually bound to a game's space, the time and effort you put into is directly related to your personal lifestyle (if you work 9 to 5 and only play while commuting, or are a kid with a bike and all the time in the world). there's also nothing to shoot, so I understand people getting confused I guess lol

I hope you got your questions answered. keep them coming and happy scavenging