Yes, the latest update is much better in terms of readability. In fact, if you wanted to keep more of the atmosphere you've created that is more about the lower saturation palette ( which is very nice) you could tone down the saturation of the foreground and add some slightly darker values.
In terms of priority, these are your main tools to exploit- saturation and value. From there you just incremently take away from these based on the priority desired ( sprites full value, full saturation; foreground partial value, full saturation; background partial saturation, partial value) etc.