On an almost completely unrelated note, being "eaten by a Grue" randomly is not an acceptable death. The first time that happened to me I hadn't saved in 45 minutes or more and almost threw a drink at the monitor.
Yeah, but I don't recall the Grue deaths being random. You're always warned "You've entered a dark place. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue." Then, if you just exit the way you came, your good. So, it's frustrating sure, but not totally arbitrary.
I remember in the Infocom game Lurking Horror, there's a bit near the end where you have to open a shimmering curtain to get into the next room where the final encounter takes place. As soon as you touch the curtain, you disintegrate. The first time it happened to me, I was really angry. The second time, I examined the curtain first, and there is a fairly obvious clue that tells you that the curtain is dangerous. The fact that the curtain is described as 'shimmering' is a clue to examine it closely before proceeding.
I guess the point here is that the death can seem arbitrary, but there is in fact a set of clues laid out to help the observant player avoid it. The old Infocom games were particularly good at this, and I think a lot of current game designers could benefit from studying their approach. The classic Sierra games always frustrated me, because so often the deaths there were random or arbitrary, though at least they were funny.