Well, you lost me again.

And I know we've had this discussion before, so it's probably a mistake for me to post. If you're discounting puzzles and hoping for something else to appear, then I have to agree with Mr. Koster.

You want multiple solutions, it's gotta be procedural if you want a plurality of solutions.

Otherwise you've still got the player trying to guess the mind of the designer, only the designer came up with 10 different things to try.

It's the same damn adventure/puzzle game as before, if you're looking to still maintain artistic authorship. You just had to write more stuff.

I know you, and I'm sure the solution you're looking for is out there. You'll find it, but it's not here yet.

Per turning the hints off, that one's pretty easy to see. If your target demo is adventure game grognards, the hints are going off. Mass market, they'll leave them on, but you'll have to come up with a different nomenclature than "hints," or they'll turn them off too. Nobody wants to feel dumb.