I was wrong, Pikmin 3 is totally manageable. Stopped playing so gingerly after doing the time-intensive side stories and now control an absolutely vicious army of little men who will die for me unprovoked. idk how it took me almost 10 years from release to play it past, like, day 4, having a lot of fun.
Also, I'm calling it here; the thus unnamed Arachnorb that shows up in a pikmin 4 trailer will be called Raving Long-Legs because of it's disco-ball-look and resemblance to the Raging Long-Legs from Pikmin 2. Edit: some others have already made this prediction, but I'd like to assert that mine was independent from theirs.