some flaws
for the user ship below - i was also confused by this, but it turns out to be your inventory is full. you have to sell your old stuff to make space for new stuff, and i found i'd always sell my last bit of gear to get the next bit. however, being a 100% type of guy i was annoyed that i could beat the major boss at level 12, before i've bought even half of all the equipment, and that rather than a few items that make interesting differences there's a large amount of same function stuff with different colours and numbers.
that said, it was fun enough for me to play through to the end, and makes me with i had a bi-decadely tournament to enter.