yup, having worked at a game developer for a few years, I can definitely say that there is a "cool factor" that weights much more heavily in design than pure in-game power.
there is a tendency after playing the same level a hundred times for testing, to forget balance in favor of what feels cool.
this game has that all over the place. my guess is that the first real balance patch, which I would expect to pop sometime towards the end of this month, will likely address a lot of this.
