I don't know what the point of The Witness is, I haven't played it and I haven't really wanted to look at people solving puzzles in a puzzle game because that defeats the purpose. I was just responding to someone expressing that sort of frustration in the game, and then expanding on my point of what I find particularly frustrating in some adventure games and poorly designed puzzle games.
I have no idea either, other than what few descriptions Blow has given that gave me that impression. I could be totally wrong, but I can't really imagine another way of doing it that would be anything other than a chore to play