Eh I’m kinda in a mixed bag. On one hand I do enjoy the certain level of dream and paranoia trying to survive level 1 is like. But at the same time most of the fun builds don’t really awaken until around level 5 or so, which I feel may be rather high especially since I don’t remember all my mechanics. 

Perhaps a compromise of starting around level 3? Not so low that a lucky hit could kill you, but not too high that you could solo group encounters yet.