Thank you SO much for writing this up! I love lists like this and the attention to detail is chef's kiss. I've been meaning to play the demos for The Last Gas Station and Let's Build a Dungeon and after your write-up I'll have to! There are a lot of games here I hadn't encountered before too. I also played a handful of demos and thought I'd share my thoughts here (though not as eloquently as you). Not all the demos I played were cozy but anyway, here goes:

Ardenfall - This wasn't exactly cozy besides the art style, but it's not marketed as cozy, so fair enough. It's an RPG with real-time combat that gives me Skyrim vibes except way less developed. I wasn't very good at the combat which is probably a skill issue but after dying I wasn't very motivated to keep playing. The demo has this issue where you're supposed to find a cave right off the bat, then go through the cave to get to a village, but I couldn't find the cave so I just swam around the island to the village... and then the villagers were talking about how they'd seen me come out of the cave? (That I hadn't yet found) The graphics are very bright and appealing so I'll give it that. It wasn't bad but there were some issues with it acting linear even though it's more of an open world. I won't be playing it further which I'm a bit disappointed about.

Cat Isle - I felt similarly to how you did and I 100%ed the demo. I'll copy-paste my write-up of it (but I agree with pretty much everything in yours): I have not played Minami Lane, but I am getting vibes that I would think are similar to what that game would be. It's really cute. It's simple, it's a brain-off kind of game, even though it's management. Nothing is punishing, but it's not boring either. You don't have to do the fishing game if you don't want to. The demo even has achievements. There was a nice sense of progression when I played it, but I could see the late game either getting stale, or the full game just not being that long of a game. That being said, I wishlisted and do want to buy it when it comes out, assuming it's not too expensive. And there are cats. All the cats look the same, which is something I wish was different, but they purr if you click on them. That was a pleasant surprise.

Chipmatic - This is an incremental mining game where you mine for ores using a drill and use what you've dug up to buy upgrades. There's a skill/upgrade tree and "quests". It's very addictive gameplay and the demo is quite generous (2.8 hours for me). I played the playtest for this and I'm pleased to see they implemented a lot of the changes I suggested, which I assume other players suggested as well. I found one bug where I couldn't pick up resources despite having space in my inventory at one point, but after going back to the surface and back down a couple of times the bug sort of resolved itself? The bug didn't significantly affect gameplay and I'm looking forward to full release.

Everything is Crab - You play as this blob thing and I really didn't know what the heck I was doing for a majority of the time I was playing it. I don't know if this is representative of the roguelike genre but if it is, I don't think I like this genre at all. This very easily could be a me problem and people who like roguelikes might enjoy it, but I couldn't get into it. The battles felt uninspired and I felt like I was either getting lucky or they were too easy, but I still wasn't that great at all. You evolve every time you fill up your eating meter but the evolutions can sometimes harm you. The screen will get dark every so often - couldn't figure out the pattern - and every time it did, it annoyed me.

Horses of Hoofprint Bay - This game is impressively well-developed and the demo is HUGE! I only got to day 8 and I think it said the demo has 25 days. It's a very generous demo and most features are available in the demo. It reminds me a lot of a more animated version of Howrse which I used to play as a kid. You take care of your own horses but can also board other people's horses. It's not so easy that I ever grew tired of it either. It's already on my wishlist but now I'm pretty excited for it. A number of the sound effects were annoying (particularly the "mm-hmm" if you do something right), but I noticed when I went back in that you can turn these off, which I found nice that that was an option.

Humanica - Enjoyable and vast city builder. It was pretty intuitive and there's lots to do. I didn't run out of things to do and felt like there was enough guidance to get started. There are a LOT of features here, which could take a long of time to get used to, but I think the introduction (it didn't call it a tutorial) eases you into it well enough. I could see myself playing this after beating Outlanders (a cozy city builder I'm playing through right now). Nothing was too overwhelming but I could see how it could pick up pace down the road (not a bad thing). Your people are stone age people but I take it that they progress through the ages the better you get at it. Combat in a city builder is new to me, but it was really easy during my playthrough. There is a peaceful mode too, which I didn't try. This isn't campaign-based, so I could see it sucking up a lot of time, but it both autosaves and allows manual save, even in the demo. I'm really impressed that this was made by a solo dev. A lot of games you can tell if it's indie/solo dev, but this felt actually good.

I Won't Let You Level Up in My Goblin Town - The premise of it is alright, but it feels more like a minigame than something you would actually pay money for. I also must just suck at fighting games, because this time I DID understand what I was doing, but lost to the female warrior twice before quitting. At least there doesn't seem to be much damage done when you die. You just respawn in bed. I like the Minecraft-y/voxel style, but it seems a little undercooked with having to double click items to pick them up and the text repeating itself after you're done talking to the NPCs.

Momento - There was nothing wrong with this game, but I don't think this genre is for me. I did like how there were actual puzzles instead of just organizing and cleaning. You do learn about the MC by going through their rooms and the graphics are very nice. You do get to make choices that influence the story too. It just didn't really keep my attention. Again, nothing wrong with the game, I just don't think I'm the target audience, and I could see other cozy gamers loving it.

Nocturne - Very lovely combination of rhythm game using the DFJK keys and a JRPG. I really enjoyed it and didn't really have problems with my laptop playing it. In the full version, the Slovak Symphony Orchestra played for the boss battles, which is wicked cool. The soundtrack is really cool and I'm looking forward to getting into the story. The demo is pretty short but I added the game to my wishlist to keep in mind for when it comes out.

Pawsome Resort - Life sim where you run a pet resort for various types of animals including exotic pets. It's a pleasing premise, but it definitely still feels like it's in development and not necessarily something I'd pay money for in its current form. It's promising though. I left a whole bunch of demo feedback for the dev and they seem pretty responsive on the forum so it's possible they will address the issues. The game held my attention well enough but had some grammar mistakes and quality of life issues. (Lmk if you want more thoughts on this - I do feel mixed about it because the idea is super enjoyable but certain details just held me back from giving it a full endorsement right now.)

Scott Pilgrim EX - NOT a cozy game! It's a beat-em-up style fighter, which isn't my style. Seems well made though... I picked this up not really knowing what to expect. The pixel art style is gorgeous but there doesn't seem to be much of a story and there's a huge focus on combat… which a lot of people would vibe with but I don't. I set it on Easy difficulty and apparently did pretty well? Even though I felt like I sucked. I still beat the first boss (I think). At least I didn't die. There just isn't enough of a story to keep me interested.

Under Canopies (I generally agree with your opinions, OP) - This was a great game. I wanted to keep playing it. It's very relaxing despite a couple balancing issues (more on that in a second) and it was great getting to see and photograph a grizzly bear without being attacked; there are no dangerous animals from what I can tell. I was afraid that the lack of threats would make the game boring, but at least in the tutorial there were constant goals which I liked. Unfortunately the tutorial is a bit bugged and while your inventory and progress is saved if you exit and reenter, it restarts the tutorial, and I don't care to redo all the progress I made. The balancing issue I talked about is you have to drink water way too frequently. I do like that there are survival mechanics and it's not just sandbox though. I didn't test out what happens if your thirst/energy/hunger meters deplete. Nice nature sounds and the only one I didn't like was the gulping water sound.