tl;dr that's your opinion, people, let others have their
The one thing in your post I can agree on, though you don't exactly give off the vibe that you agree with that notion yourself.
As I explained before, it's not like it's impossible to unlock the stages. It just requires a little bit more effort, as opposed to the snoozefest that the older system amounted to. If that's too hard, just practice more. The thing is, you need the proficience at dealing with the other stages anyway if you want to clear the game without using Continues, so why not do it as you unlock each stage, becoming increasingly familiar with the previous one? And even then that's not entirely necessary if you just want to unlock stage after stage as quickly as you possibly can.
That's also something I consider to be a reward for my hard work, by the way - unlocking a new stage for Practice, a new playground to develop strategies.
Of course, that's just my personal opinion.
Edit:
EDIT: I know it was quite a rant, but it's a personal thing. I can tell you for a fact that if all bullet hell games had that continue system, I wouldn't be interested in the genre. Honestly, I can't see what can be accomplished by throwing challenge into people's faces like that, aside from scaring them away instead. I mean, if someone gets interested in this genre, losing score and not being able to save replays are enough of a punishment for using continues, trust me. I'm not all that much against that system, but please don't downplay its downsides.
Don't worry about it, I don't think you're the only one who got a little too much into the whole discussion.
As you said, it's mostly a matter of personality. I, for instance, seem to be kind of opposite of your position; I enjoy the challenge, I earn my right to almost everything I want to do by doing certain things, sometimes even of completely unrelated nature. Sometimes, I even make things more difficult, whether it's because of my pride or because of something else.
That, however, is what's appealing to me about these games and I can understand why that would seem less appealing to you or others in regard to the changed Continue-system. Of course, it's also a matter of an entirely different playstyle, but even then I wouldn't entirely condemn it as, even with the system's faults, as perceived by someone of your opinion, it still doesn't entirely prevent you from doing things the way you do them in the older games. It's a little more difficult to unlock stages for Practice Mode, but not impossible.
I'd actually say it's a bit of a compromise in that regard, but then again, previously I just chose "No" whenever I had the option to use a Continue (minus that one time I chose "Yes" by accident, recorded for eternity in my IN score-file), so I guess you could say it's just one way to make the games a little more difficult for the players who do use Continues.
Anyway, I definitely wouldn't condemn the games because of that - it's a bit more of a challenge if you're used to using Continues, but that should also make it more satisfying to win. Of course, that also depends on how much work you want to invest into the games.
