Third play through attempt it finally made sense to me amd I was able to complete it without too much trouble. I applied a mod that prevented me from losing my geo because the anxiety of losing all my money cos I'm bad actually made it hard to want to play. With this mod applied i had no real qualms stomping around the world and dying all the time which made it significantly more enjoyable for me, the idea of being punished for exploring and being bad felt counter to what i was supposed to be doing.
Good game with great art and personality. All the voices of the bugs are now part of my personality. Only content left to do is grimm troupe and path of pain (no I'll never do pantheons not even with a gun to my head) but after 40 hours I'm a bit fatigued.
Next up... Crosscode 
It’s still totally worth the play especially with the DLC. I did the same thing as you