I personally prefer MNF more than SL, but I like them both myself. I think it really is subjective what style of storytelling and character development, and of course, art, will end up making whatever games of this type someone's favorites or not. Halfway House is also good, but, for the pacing that this game has (SL), none of those games I mentioned have such a hasty progression rate. I may be mistaken, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people love this game in particular because of how fast you're able to progress it.
Absolutely true. Writing itself, no matter how many ideas and how confident and focused on them you are can get rough really quickly. It the kind of toughness that sneaks up on you. I've written quite a bit throughout my life thus far, and, this CYOA style of writing, really, choice based in general, is far more difficult, at least for me, because you have to somehow remember each and every idea, direction, outline and detail for each choice made, and like you said, how to ensure they're all able to properly develop and carry the story and character development forward fluidly. And when you've got a imagination that churns out concepts, ideas & paths to write with at a billion miles an hour with no ability to slow it down... it makes it almost impossible to accomplish. All that said, feel free to keep me in the loop if and when you ever manage to begin making that game you have in your head a reality. I would not mind giving it a shot myself!