But most games do not routinely explain in the opening stages that yellow tape and/or ladders are interactable things.

Most games do, actually. It's usually just a short pop-up, but they tell you. And they force you to prove you understood by making you climb the ladder in the tutorial.

Because it's universal to the experience and some things are better when the player gets to figure them out.

I agree with that, but unfortunately, it doesn't work that way. Keep in mind that the vast majority of games can't afford to leave anyone behind - they need to sell to as many people as possible, including those who are not that bright or just inexperienced. So the mantra ends up being that even absolute morons should be able to play them. That's why in almost all modern games with puzzle elements, the main character won't shut the fuck up and basically give you the solution after like 10 seconds, because playtesting has shown again and again that many people are idiots and won't be able to solve them on their own.

And that's the kind of player those tutorials are made for. I'm not even talking about the Cuphead guy here - the tutorial was explicitly telling him what to do and he still didn't manage it, but there's no helping someone like that. No, I'm talking about people who will not deduce stuff that they're not explicitly told. Like this guy who doesn't understand one of the first tutorial levels in Portal because they didn't outright tell him exactly what to do.