So, two things can be true simultaneously.

That "Eureka" moment you describe is what puzzle makers are striving for, which is why e.g. Portal 2 has a hack where either portal button will save you in a situation where players may realise "Oh! A portal can save me!" but forget which end they need - just dying because you picked wrong isn't satisfying. This isn't Wolverine - if you just stubbornly don't use a portal you will die - but if you flail and pick orange when you needed blue the game has mercy on you.

However, Blow doesn't seem to have yet understood that the skill isn't in making the puzzle difficult and having a "Eureka" moment for some players but in designing your game to maximise this experience for the most players.

You can learn about this more easily playing "Zendo" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zendo_(game). A master who invents a rule their player cannot discover isn't a good master, that's just frustrating for everybody, there is skill in choosing a rule that will give your players the "Eureka" moment.

Two recent-ish video games stick out in my mind for delivering on this in very different ways. The first is Blue Prince. Blue Prince really wants you to figure out what's going on and have those Eureka moments. I have seen one gamer go "Bridge. Bride. OK I see what we're doing here" in their first five minutes of the game. I have seen a different gamer go "Yes, yes, a map of the house and more riddles, but what does it all mean?" while standing in the Study still not having understood the exact same puzzle... Tonda designed the game to be enjoyable for both players.

Secondly, Fleb's games, most obviously "20 Small Mazes" and its sequal "20 More Somehow Even Smaller Mazes". This time rather than offering many, many clues, the game delivers Eureka at pace by not forcing you to solve increasingly complicated versions of the same puzzle as "The Witness" does but instead you go from not understanding to then figuring it out and at about the time you go "Eureka!" the maze is solved and the next one is different.

That meta-stuff you mention leaves me cold because it's just introspection and I can do that without a video game. If the video game needs to fit in a Commodore Vic 20 (a machine with 4096 bytes of RAM, yes I said bytes) then sure there's no room to do more, giving me pause to reflect on my own beliefs is maybe the best you can do. But games like Animal Well show that in a modern video game you can, and I argue you should, actually put more game in the game, not just sit back and tell players their thoughts are part of your game. "The Witness" has moments where you think "Ooh, maybe there's more game in this game" but no, Jon couldn't be bothered to deliver more game, that's really your job apparently.