but that was the story DPC wanted to tell, without that situation it would not have been BADIk, but another game
if from the meeting in MC's future room a couple other than M&J would have come out, Maya's problem would have been solved (if she had been with MC she had nothing to hide, if she had lost Josy, living in hiding or waiting for her college years would have been a minor effort), at that point no more scavenger hunt, no more danger from Patrick's visit, no more Sage's intervention to help Maya... practically 60-70% of BADIk's story would have been skipped, basically only Tybalt's blackmail would have been left... not a good prospect...
as a general rule: in my opinion, DPC often exaggerated these moments and did not always achieve the desired effect.
I am not convinced that the reaction to certain moments was always what DPC had intended.
It's true that the Maya/Josy story arch branches deeper into the story than probably any other plot in the game so far, but we were talking about curveballs.
As far as I know nobody saw it coming and just like Jade may have "ruined" many peoples savefiles for Sage, the scene when Josy suddenly stands in the door probably "ruined" it for all those who were just interessted in one of the two girls.
Now we have hindsight, we know how important the Josy/Maya relationship is to the story, but back then ? I mean it was the definition of a curveball and when it happend I was still sure that we could pick either one of them and not that it would end up being both or none.
It's entirely possible that DPC underestimated the reactions or flat out never saw them coming. I often wonder if he adapts on the fly when he notices that the players interpret things differently than he intended or if he just sticks to his script no matter what.
If I understand you right, than maybe curveball was just the wrong word. I think what you really ment is that his cliffhangers and teasers usually dont provide the same satisfaction as they hint at and sometimes even none at all(chad), which I, at least in part, blame on the long development time, but also agree with. Players have a looooong time to come up with what could happen and then it grows from there as other people add to it, creating a whole nother level of expectations.