“* The speed of advancement was an even bigger issue, though. An every-session bump is sweet! They like it, I like it. ”

Also say more about this:  How did they manage an every session bump?  It takes 5XPs to level up a skill, and I’m only seeing where 2-3 XPs would be reliable to hit every session.  An occassional “Spot Light” episode I could see a player managing 5 in a single session…but for everyone to get 5 every session?

Were you perhaps to lenient in what counted as “risking” and “sacrifice”.

Related:  Were you aggressively tracking Rot?  My concern on reading it would be that the leveling up would be too slow to keep pace with the loss of effectiveness from Rot and that characters would death spiral into ineffectiveness after half a dozen sessions, so I’m surprised that you saw the opposite.