My kyu-level thoughts on the position:

White has about 35 solid points, while Black has about 15 points in the lower right corner and 20 points on the bottom left. However Black still has some potential in the center and no big weaknesses, so I still prefer Black. Maybe Lizzie thinks that White is ahead because considers that White has 7.5 komi?

Without looking at your hints, I also considered a, b, c. Moves "b" and "c" continue the idea of attacking the ponnuki, but the attacks don't look very severe. Perhaps start with "b", and then "a" and "c" become miai?

I don't understand what "e" achieves, if Black responds with S4. It repairs a weakness in White's position but gives up sente??

Over the years, I have built an intuition to cap or otherwise surround the opponent, even if they can still escape, without really caring what profit I would get out of it. With the bots, I'm trying to modify that intuition and attack sideways. The attacking move is less vulnerable that way and more importantly, the profit is likely to be found there.