You can't say that people with an imagination will make it fun. If there's an easy way there 99% of people will take it. Expecting anything else is silly. Giving the player the option of taking the white tanooki suit is enough to make most people just give up and use it. Part of the reason I was so compelled to play through Super Mario Bros 3 was the immense difficulty (and even then I ended up savestating lots between levels once I ran out of lives because restarting an entire world is bs).
A hard game by today's standards had very different expectations to a hard game from 20 years ago, but that doesn't mean they have to give you the freedom to "cheat" the game like that. Rayman Legends does a fantastic job of introducing immense difficulty very quickly, but giving you lots of options about what to play next, and forcing less experienced players to backtrack through levels they've already finished to complete the greater challenge of freeing all of the teensies/collecting enough lums for a gold trophy. On top of that there are bonus levels from Rayman Origins that can be unlocked in addition to daily and weekly challenges that rank you against every other player. Super Meat Boy gave the player the freedom to chose what level to attempt next too, and a similar idea with backtracking for bandages or dark worlds/warp zones.
If you're designing a hard game you need to give the player the freedom to advance as they see fit. Rather than allowing them to subvert challenges, you need to encourage them to go and build their skill elsewhere if they get stuck.
Some games are killed by an easy mode. Some aren't. It's very much on a case-by-case situation.
e: Also inb4 "wrong forum", Nate/Joe will fix it when they see it you don't need to make a post about it.
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