The paddle moves so slowly in which it is very difficult to try to navigate and line up under the fast-moving ball, which could ricochet very quickly at steep angle and makes it impossible to reach. You would get a lot of Game Over screen with this before anything remotely interesting happens. And once anything interesting happens, the game become quite interesting to play with the power-ups and bullet-time mechanic.
I believe the problem lies in the conjunction of slow-moving paddle and the bullet-time gauge in which it takes a while to build up the meter in order to use it effectively. Increasing the speed for paddle would remove large degree of frustration and difficulty and having the gauge being used more efficiently with one block hit equal one-half second of bullet-time instead of waiting to use it after 3 or 4 block hits. This way, the player would be in better position to avoid getting game over and you would reward the player's effort by keeping them invested in this game.