Many gamers hated this kind of "getting irreversibly stuck" situation of early adventure games, and in fact Lucasarts made a conscious effort to avoid it in later games (e.g. Full Throttle, Monkey Island, etc). You couldn't even die (yes, I know about the dying easter egg in Monkey Island).

This was in contrast with Sierra Online's adventures, which had plenty of surprise deaths and deadend situations. This led to saving frantically at every step, which isn't particularly fun.

I loved Sierra games -- the first three EGA Space Quest games are my favorites -- but I see the point of avoiding player frustration.