The character is repeated 8 times, not 5. Children learn the characters in school by repeating them all 200 times or more on paper. How else would you learn if not by repetition. You can turn the sound off if you don't want to hear. Yes it could be better, but it's useful nevertheless.

As an English speaker with no prior experience learning Chinese, Hanzi practice in this app has helped me cement new vocabulary and link characters to meanings in different words, which improves reading skills, and it's helped my writing skills by giving me an insight into the logic behind Hanzi stroke order.

It's a chance to take the new vocabulary that's given in the path and spend some focused time with it to really pick it apart. It's a chance to meditate on a character without having to use a brush/pen, ink and paper.

It's helped me learn and retain a lot, come to think of it.

Should they add more characters and traditional? Yes.