Sounds like the onset of astigmatism to me. Been there, done that, have the spiky red dot in a sight that is, in fact, functioning perfectly.
Maybe the best answer here is a 1x telescope sight--a conventional scope with a reticle but with no magnification. For some reason, I have less trouble with scope reticles than with collimated projected light beams.
Leupold made something very clever in a 1x telescope sight, the 1x14 Tactical Prismatic, but few people were interested at the price, and they stopped making it.