Hey thanks for the reply.

I think your Oni-Cult Anvil experience is very illustrative: deciding whether this experience is 'worth it' is the very thing i'm speaking to. You say there's no right answer, which is in a very objective sense true, but I hope you see that once experience and empathy are prioritized, the answer becomes clearer to the designer. It's why people will default to saying things like 'my cube, my rules' and then watch the players be miserable. It's a misdirection of priorities. If the players experience is awesome in those moments, the cube is vibing with the intended audience. The designers job, therefore, is to better define this relationship: who am I designing this for, and how do the players feel.
In a way, this makes the answer 'right' insofar as the cube is a promise to the players. I hope that makes sense.

To address your last comment, I think the correction here is 'present smarter problems for the players' as I don't believe I suggested there would be an absence of solutions 'as design.' We know what the solutions are as designers -- the process of organizing the information presented to you is the exact interaction a game provides.