Showed the game to about a dozen of people and everyone of them have commented about the picture being smallish, the text hard to read and the ample wasted borders and empty space on the cards.
Why did you decide on using that design ? Did the playtesters tested it ? No one complained about it before printing ?
My understanding of the process is that the play testers play with super rough versions of the cards, with no art or anything, to save on printer ink. They're trying to get the rules right, with no attention payed to what the components will look like. Then at some point, GtG will post proofs of all the components and everyone checks them for spelling errors and proper wording, but the overall layout of the cards has been set by GtG and isn't really up for debate. So, by the time play testers see the near-final versions, the fonts and art and such are pretty much settled.
Compounding the situation is the fact that by this point, the play testers have probably got each card mostly memorized, so text that was a bit hard to read might not even register as a problem. I think the whole process could benefit by more attention being paid to non-hardcore player issues like you're calling out, but unfortunately, the hardest-core people are who make the most successful play testers, so things don't always get looked at from the noob's perspective like I think they should.