I've been studying this thread and adventure games alot recently. I've got in my head at the moment an idea of the best way to design an adventure game, using techniques such as consistent anticipation and reward.

Orange_Brat - I know you're working on Disenfranchised. Do you ever feel like you've got all the knowledge in your head but haven't yet been able to let it out into a game? You seem to know alot about adventure games, do you ever just absorb all this information and collaberate it into a way that you know how to implement it into a game of your own?