A little confused on death mechanic

[0x57A1CFA117]

The backstory to my question (if the question's context isn't understood):
So I've unlocked the first gadget and maxed out the stage-credits for each of the colors once unlocking them (I think the 2nd go through of the credit-bat is to 1,500?). In other words, I've gotten to 1,500 credits on each of the bars. I've then gone into the right path, took out the boos, and dedicated the kill to the middle pedestal (which was a green one). This gave me a fire rate up bonus. I then died in the left path and the right path became open again. So I ran through the right path again, killed the boss, and again dedicated the kill to the green pedestal race and got a fire rate up again. I then tried the middle path, but died. Both times I've gotten the fire rate up bonus and then died it seemed like my fire rate went back to being unaffected by any bonus.

TL;DR:
My question is, do you loose the bonus you get when dedicated a kill after taking out a boss if you then die after that?

My rant on devs, by hook or by crook, implementing roguelike for sales without really understanding how such a mechanic should operate in modern gaming (since the advent of QA):
I really hope it's just my imagination (loosing your character strength); to me, loosing your character's strength makes the roguelike aspect shoe-horned into yet another game. Roguelike is supposed to be (since QA and modern gaming -- not the original Rogue game) a mechanic that is then balanced out by something else. It's not supposed to be there just for the sake of being there so the game can be labeled roguelike and people will buy it. Otherwise the roguelike aspect is just pure, unadulterated masochism and self-punishment.

Sony once said encounters in Everquest come down to the popular phrase: Risk vs. Reward. However, this is true not just in Everquest, but ALL game balancing. That's just good design. Even if you loose your progress in a path (left, middle, or right), to also lose your character strength, you're trying to build so you will eventually survive longer, removes the reward completely. The risk is already there. In fact, it there in TWO forms! The first risk form is the loss of progress of getting through the particular path. Additionally, there's a secondary risk form that the previous path's boss' henchmen become free to roam the other paths. That's TWO risks right there. And those two I feel like would be perfectly fine. But then you loose your character strength if you die. IF that's the case I mean...

What's the point in trying then? There's only so far skill will take you before your character's strength-over-time should help tip the table in your favor which is also good game design in a game that has mechanics to power your character up (so the player feels like they're getting stronger and they've gotten something out of the hundreds of attempts that ended in death).

Even the Dark Souls series had a way to keep your progress. Points spent in attributes stay (even upon death) and any unspent points you could hold onto by sitting at a campfire. So you can't even really say Dark Souls was strict roguelike. It was difficult, but even that series didn't fully remove all of your character strength.