The cost of a linear tool is invisible because it shows up as the absence of work — the ideas you didn’t reach, the shapes you didn’t sketch, the moves you didn’t try. There is no error message for a thought that never formed.
The only honest thing a single-path tool can do is admit it.
We measure the work that happens and the work that almost happened. Both have value. A discarded sketch is information. A near-miss informs the choice that landed. Plnty keeps the residue available, because the residue is the proof that the artist was thinking.
Every locked path is an idea you’ll never have.