Love wading through the slog of braindead posts after a game thread gets updated =P. I probably missed a bunch that got deleted too since I got in so late, lol... But yea on the topic of things being optional, personally if I were making a game I wouldn't have any LIs optional. Maybe some sex acts, but personally I see VNs/EGs as closer to books (I know CYAs are a thing, I mean in general) and movies than an arcade. I'd want to tell a linear story and any optional content would probably be sandbox/open world. I don't self-insert so that probably has a lot to do with how I see it. I'd rather have a high-quality single path story than 100 different endings. I wouldn't really care about losing people who don't like certain things, I think the storytelling takes primacy over people's preferences.