I really appreciate the depth of this feedback. Thank you!
Most of those issues in tracking, and the short answer is I ran out of time.
Many of the points of confusion is how I set the game up. When instability triggers it rolls a % chance. The later levels I made this too high, it isn't balanced properly. The canary triggers every chance, so if the roll doesn't trigger it seems like the canary is random.
Again, thank you for explaining the transparency. It would have sucked to be DQ'd out of the gate.