That's super unfortunate, especially the community part.

>Note that the game only had auto-save, no manual save states

Not that it fixes anything, but I am really curious when this was? At least as far back as Nov 2016 there has been manual saves via save points. And I'm pretty sure beacons have been in since pre-release.

This definitely speaks to a UI failure (as well as the quest item stuff). The UI has been completely overhauled since. But, I certainly do not blame you for having your opinion soured and not wanting to try again.