MarauderIIC

There are zipper "fitted" sheets that avoid this problem

I just don't like the style of RA as much, and I'm usually a campaign-only player for C&C anyway

I'm more of a Tiberian Dawn person myself

Yeah my post was about adding one that is big and bright even to games that have one

Often it's reported that a larger and/or brighter crosshair helps. Maybe try an overlay with a large neon pink crosshair or a piece of clear tape with a big dot of marker on it sometime? I get it's probably not a problem that you are interested in putting time into solving any more though.

My partner and I find it a bit awkward with just two of us

As I recall, the 'campaign' gets impossible to do with two players because of the inability to look up enough stuff in parallel. There are mods and custom bombs though.

This is pretty sweet

"this application is preventing you from shutting down. Go back and save your work: shut down, cancel"

Clicks cancel

Windows: shutting down!

Stardew Valley.

It's 2D, co-op, not difficult or punishing, has few inputs, and is approachable mechanically.

Your description of vendor lock-in is obviously solvable by developers making a competing UI and workflow similar to the most popular software, and enabling new features under another menu. That said, there is obviously minimal interest in doing so.

This is UI. UI is not vendor lock-in. Lock-in costs users money to break out of, not developers.

Isn't the Factorio tutorial the first 1,000 hours? Ha