Perhaps it's more attitude, then? What you said does sound interesting - I just never think like that when I'm solving puzzles. When I think puzzle, my mind goes to something like a rubics cube - an object where there's some trick that once you've learned, the object becomes 'solved'. That abrogates any need for creativity, since the solution is already preordained in the design of the puzzle itself, so I just get irritated and (usually) find some way to cheat it.