Thanks for the positive feedback on my question. It turns out the author continued to the next branch and used the same escape clause I had thought of, albeit with more of a goal than I would have done.
Thinking over your answers and my own feelings, I've concluded that solving Jon's problems is a swell thing to do, but I shouldn't just leave it at that. Part of the fun is leaving doosies for other to solve (or, as often as not, make worse) .
So my course of action will be to add the short solutions,but not until I can think of some bad outcome to inflict on out protagonists.
Ahem. Muhahahahahahah.
