The update has improved the gameplay so much! I managed to beat it first try :)
I had one comment / idea: using the bumpers still feels a little frustrating. There's 2 solutions I can think of. One would be to slow the ball down when its in the lower portion of the screen (maybe by like 5%) - so that its not noticeable to the player, but makes it easier to hit the ball if its moving fast. You could also cap the ball speed a bit lower. The second way would be to add in some upgrades to make the flippers longer, or add in powerups to block the sidechannels and bottom. But these frustrations are part of what makes games like this annoyingly addictive!
This is a seriously impressive game to have made in only 9 days