This is an... odd list of complaints. Most of the things you're complaining vary from being not nearly as much of an issue as you're making it out to be, to being patently untrue. On the other hand, you only brifely mention the pacing issue, and make no mention of the clusterfuck the plot turns into later on
I mean, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone either, but that's mostly because it was clearly intended to have a second season that's now unlikely to ever materialize
Indeed, what we got was a massive Cliff Hanger. Who are the heads of the organization and why are they such jerks? Is there more to the main character's special ability? And a lot more, like the identities of the other tarot Magical Girls and the deal with the raven and cat. I liked the anime when watching it first, but then again I doubt I'd watch it once more too. What I do have to clearly say is, it has some very fine music.
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A Waste of a Good Idea
In a single sentence:
This series is what it looks like when you waste a good idea on a gimmick.
People compare this series to Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and it's easy to see why: magical girls in bright colors fighting supernatural creatures born of suffering and Faustian pacts. But that's really where the similarities end, and more's the pity, because he concept here is a good one. The Tarot is nothing new in anime, but Illusioni suffers from miserably poor pacing and a lack of a central theme to bring the series into a cohesive whole.
The stakes just aren't there. Much ado is made about the savior/executioner dichotomy, but not so much that it interferes with shopping for hair accessories or making friends, and the moral implication of the "It can't be helped, just kill it" mentality is a non-issue. Akari displays the ability to talk to the demons, but no one seems to care about what that could mean. The girls' powers are instinctive and so combat looks effortless, they live in the lap of luxury, their interpersonal conflicts are brief and have no serious consequences. We're introduced to the victim-of-the-day and then they're gone by the end credits, and with rare exceptions, are never mentioned again, even when they're meant to be significant to the main cast. We're told the girls are tragic figures destined to live a life of morally gray violence, but we spend half the episodes watching them living easy lives and fighting easy battles.
Painted in shiny candy colors with cutesy (probably marketable) stylized Tarot imagery, Illusioni doesn't have enough gravity to pull its core concepts to the depth they needed to go to be meaningful. The cast are less characters and more collections of popular tropes, and the limp attempts to add a bit of grim-dark to their pasts don't have any real lasting impact on them until it's Time To Be Sad About the Thing That Happened, if ever.
It could have been a lot better, but I'd be hard-pressed to imagine how it could have been much worse.