If there were no chaining/syncing bonuses their would still be a lot of strategy to the game, because there will always be more blocks than anyone can ever pick up without overfilling very quickly.
Without these bonuses, there remain a lot of strategic choices - do you avoid the numerous but low value cold colours or the rare but valuable hots? do you always leave a lane free to drop whites in? do you just collect blocks randomly then use a paint power up to get one massive combo? There still remain a lot of different ways to play the game.
I have no problems with learning curves. I just don't like the way that these bonuses are hidden from the player and applied under the hood, or how counter intuitive the strategy is. The fact that you have to sit down with a calculator or go online to watch a video just to work out how to play the game cannot be good.
I don't think the coloured modes should be easy, but they should be elegant and intuitive. Tetris is not complicated but it can still be very challenging.
I mean, surely if whites and power ups were meant to be avoided then why even put them in the game in the first place? I can't bring myself to play the game like this because to me it feels like an exploit, not a fun strategy.
