It is actually worse than you think. The first few new levels get a huge difficulty boost when the event is active, I used to only play it with new levels, making it an event that actually wastes your time.
Ya new levels is how I played it in the past. It would be "ok" but there is the baked in artificial difficultly boost for 1-2 levels at the start making it very hard to get the best reward or force you to spend boosters/gold.
The other thing that can happen is you still have moves but the boosters break a fixed mechanic. Some levels expect a specific first move and if that does not happen then are very hard to beat.
I think you noted the locked boosters previously @SneakyMelonPyroDuck? Ya they are locked due to the speed up which has always been really odd. Oh just noticed the edit on messages is 1 month now. That is a lot better.
I guess I am to blame with my no buying extra moves tests :P If you get to the 1 move left ~6 gold for a lolipop was ~40% in savings :D Remember the modern King policy, fun not allowed.
Took a long break. After the nonsense with the episode race will be on another one til Jan. I just checked and now in my newest game I have the 29 hammer/swap. Utterly poisonous.