Ron, wait, I think I’ve got it! 
Follow me a second… the mechanism that is an obstacle to visibility could be this: 1) silly reviewers see the verbs onscreen and immediately think “retro game”, and review the game as such. 2). Silly players see the verbs and are instantly alienated, and don’t give the game a chance.
But if this is the mechanism (and there is a good chance), then you can still fix it! you could program a coin UI and put it as default. Like you did with the “annoying in-jokes” option.
Think about it: those who liked the verbs have likely already played the game. Now you need to reach the others.
In the coin UI, you could maybe differentiate between pick up, push and use, in order not to lose puzzles. This would leave gameplay unchanged. (open would converge into “use”). the inv would stay on screen.
we could then also contact major reviews to make them change the review.
What do you think? could it be that instead of increasing visibility we need to focus on removing this obstacle to visibility?