Hotel Dusk intermediate impressions

As I noted this past summer, I picked up Hotel Dusk: Room 215 as a next thing to play after Miles Edgeworth.  So far I've been mostly enjoying it.  The writing is good; the characters seem well-developed.  The gameplay is a little mixed though.  Every so often you'll be thrown a puzzle of some sort (pick the lock, figure out why your toilet isn't flushing).  The puzzles vary in difficulty from pretty trivial to moderately annoying.  (That, and trying to figure out how to use the stylus to manipulate the objects at hand the way the game wants you to, which is sometimes annoying.  Why can't I just break the box down, for example?)  That in itself isn't necessarily bad; what's bad is that the game really railroads you into DOING THIS PUZZLE NOW.  It completely depopulates the hotel if you decide to leave the puzzle and wander around, which is both unrealistic and creepy.  Worse, it's not always clear that you are about to back yourself into a no-man's-land of not being able to get back to the puzzle you abandoned (interviewing a particularly troublesome guest, in this case).  As I have just done, according to one walkthrough I just checked - apparently, I'm supposed to wait to leave the guest's room until he throws me out, *then* retrieving a key item will allow me back into his room.  (I left too soon.  I have the key item, but he isn't letting me in, and as a result I'm in the Empty Hotel of Doom.) (Edit: According to another walkthrough, there's ANOTHER key item I need, but which is easy enough to get.  Couldn't get the guy to throw me out... grr.)

The one saving grace is that the game has three save slots, but you'd better remember to use them - otherwise you'll end up going through a great deal of text, somewhat slowly.  Always save before you start a conversation with someone.  Always, always.  Because boy, you really could screw yourself otherwise.