The style of writing was very funny!
First of I too always walk in what I hope is the opposite direction and check any corner (and if the game has fall damage, often not on purpose through, I am just clumpsy in games and real life).
I think the way people talk about guidance in games (often dismissiv called 'hand holding') is very emotional loaded, which is not itself a bad thing, but people can be in my opinion be unnecessary cruel - now I am not deep in the discussion, I do not consider myself a "Gamer", I have two left hands and very bad eyes so I do not play many video games, the ones I played have rarely if ever featured literal yellow paint and not that often figurative ones either.
Starting with literal yellow paint: in a stylized and often small scale game like "Spyro", "Harvest Moon Back To Nature" or "One Piece: Pirate Warriors" to just use examples I have actually played, there does not need to be color coding to differiancitate between parts of the envoirment you can interact and parts you can not, because there is such a limited quantium of objects at all, there is also the graphical/aesthetic difference between interactive parts of the maps and non interactive backgrounds - in games that strive for (hyper-)realism and clutter the worlds with objects and non interactive or non game play/story relevant characters because this is something you can do with modern hardware it makes sense to me to somehow guide the viewer to the places/characters/objects they would want to go to, many people will say, and I get where they come from that there are more subtle methods than yellow paint (or invisible walls) and they are right, the few games I play(ed) are mostly stylized, one counter example to my personal trend which made me think about game guidance is "The last guardian", while playing in a fantasy world the visual style is mostly realism, in fact the fantastical chimera Tico is portrayed with detailed fur and feathers, contrasting with the more simplified human protagonist The Boy, its not only the fantastical beast but more relevant to this rant, the envoirment, the stone ruins, the greenery overgrowing them, the weather are rendered in for me almost overwhelming detail - I said it before I have bad eyes, The Last Guardian is not a precision platformer, pointing in the general direction mostly does the trick, still I was failing a lot, to make the jump and more so to even recognize in what direction I should make the jump, more than once my poor sense of direction combined with my poor eye sight had me turned around completly and retreat paths I had already taken only recognicing it when I arrived at a special distinct location ("Wait! Look at all this water, I was here before!).
Another example about less literally yellow paint is my families first expierince playing Final Fantasy VIII, at one point your girlfriend is stuck in space, you are suppose to rescue her to continue the plot, my brother however instead of doing so right away, through it was a good opportunity to play the card mini game first, he played a lot, he finished for the day and did so again, and after a while we forget where our girlfriend was lost, we searched all over the map, where did she go? Eventually we got hints/remainders through I don't remember where anymore, its been a while since I played it, I may misremeber it slightly.
To sum up my rambling I think the problem with "hand holding" is as so often a lack of choice, being grabbed as a child and pulled along in an adults pace or held still is bad because you have no choice, taking a friends or partners hand because some place is uncomfortable or asking for an explanation is good, like other ("difficulty" related) game features I think being allowed to toogle stuff on or off (and that not being a permanent fixture if possible) would solve a lot of peoples problems with it.