Yes! I had almost the same thing happen with Gloomhaven, the guy at my local shop told me my group would bounce off it hard and I should grab something lighter. Turns out two of my friends had been secretly wanting a big campaign game for months and just never said it out loud, so we played weekly for a whole winter. Store folks see what you buy, not who shows up on game night, and that gap matters way more than they admit.

Man, that stings. Waiting 20 minutes just to get a fuzzy nightlight has to be one of the worst feelings in this hobby. I did almost the same thing last winter with Jupiter, got a mushy orange ball and could not figure out why until I noticed the focus had crept on me between shots. The slipping mount is the real killer because you do not see it happening in the dark, you just find out later when the stack falls apart. Locking down the focus with a piece of tape on the drawtube saved me more than once.