S-B made more sense in the traditional 16+ player round-robin (dating myself), with 60% elite players & maybe 40% local masters. The gap between #1 and #16 might be 350 Elo. The Wijk aan Zee A-section might be the only supertournament where it might still make a little sense as a tiebreaker.
Anyway, Ding Liren’s beautiful combination in the second blitz game was more than enough justification for the format.
Yes, I see it frequently. After one guesses a letter, one may solve the puzzle. In my example, the player had already spun, gotten a large number, and then failed to pick the highest recurring consonant, instead deciding on a silly consonant and then solving the puzzle. What part of that was wrong?