I think you have to accept that some starts are better than others. If you get no powerups on the first screen you're going to struggle. I think you're right that the middle game is quite easy (i.e. you can just bounce off a wall and clear the screen pretty easily). At higher levels you have to plan a bit more, and get really good at hitting corners to achieve horizontal bounces, which is hard to do reliably. It was certainly worth a weekend of my life, anyway. :)
