Hey, just to be a pedantic asshole…

When I see “Roguelike” I imagine a game that’s too small to be a real game, so they made it so you can never win and just have to keep trying and you’ll get a decent number of hours out of it. With just enough progression each time that you start to believe it’s possible you’ll get somewhere meaningful.

You’re describing a ‘roguelite’, which implies metaprogression. ‘roguelike’ normally means that there is no (or extremely little) metaprogression… getting better is just about increasing player knowledge, typically. The terms are used somewhat interchangeably sometimes but some games, at least, still use them correctly.

That said, if the size is the killer… Take a look at Caves of Qud. It’s a traditional roguelike, but there’s non-perma-death options when starting a new game, and the size of the game was definitely not the reason for choosing the genre.

I am worried that reasonable points like this might change my mind 😬

My lack of knowledge on the points you make is partially willful ignorance on my part afterall 😁

Worried? Intelligent people change their minds when presented with new information.