The difference between D&D rolling and Blue Swallow is: there is no random chance to your stats. And while some nudges in one direction or another may not be entirely transparent, I'd argue that most make a lot of sense: nerds have higher learning, jocks have higher athletics, etc etc.
The lack of randomness doesn't matter. The associated stat changes might be sensible, but when this sensible change means actively sabotaging your chances to get through the game, to the point where it becomes impossible (something the player isn't even aware of, as they never get any warning about it) then what's exactly the benefit of having such option? As you note yourself, getting this sort of outcome "kinda sucked" in your own experience. Now imagine this is your player's first (and second, and third if they have any patience left) experience with your game, just as they're done with prolonged character creator, and it's only made worse by being unable to tell what they did 'wrong'. Why would you ever
want to subject them to such frustrating experience?
Especially when this is not a COYA booklet and people
can't simply "flip back a few pages" and pick up another option, the way you did, when their character is inherently broken beyond repair.
"Well but they can build a character who won't fail" not only requires the player to potentially put up with failures to even (hopefully) figure out
why they're failing at character creation where all they did was pick from provided backstory options, but also just brings us back to the core point -- which is, there's no real benefit to having "ability" to build a character who
will fail. These are simply "choices" which the player will (eventually learn to) avoid, because they aren't even pointless but actively harmful.
With this new mechanic you have introduced (one which elevates stability and confidence into much more than just "one of the stats") a number of situations in the character creator becomes really questionable in terms of provided options and, again, basically are only traps for the uninformed player. I'm speaking specifically of "choices" where the player effectively gets to decide between "do this thing" and potentially gain some stats or "don't do this thing" and gets "rewarded" only by loss of either confidence or stability and nothing else. As long as there is no benefit from these stats being
low, this is a choice between "get 100 dollars" and "lose 100 dollars". That is to say, in practice it's no choice at all.
The different scenarios which you have described as how you imagine people would play your game to enjoy it all require the player to be intimately familiar with the game's mechanics and the benefits of individual choices, to the point where they can knowingly build a character whose traits will match their intended playstyle and what the story throws at them. But this is not the kind of knowledge your fresh players will have. And a lot won't sit through multiple hours of going through the same character creator over and over to acquire it. (and even for these who will, i question just how much fun it really be when they're forced to operate very much in the dark)
As for #2, I'm certain people will (and already have) figured out ways to see their stats. Hell, it's in Twine, people can just abjectly change their stats whenever they want if they go into the Console.
Now, come on, you can't be serious: as it stands, the game intentionally hides all stats and their changes from the player. That is the baseline experience, and that a few more inquisitive people might be determined enough to look under the hood does not change this in the slightest, nor will make the experience any better for the bulk of your playerbase who won't bother with such things.
