And people are absolute idiots if that pacifies them, because the everything works out exactly the same either way. Seriously, if you actually care about this sort of thing what Blizzard did is equivalent to saying "well it wasn't rape, it was surprise sex!"
That just isn't the way the human mind works. We get pleasure not just from a thing, but from the context of the thing as well
People can be given the same food, and if it is delivered in fast food boxes vs. fine diningware, they will tell you it either tastes so-so, or GREAT! Give people generic cola in it's generic container and they will tell you it isn't as good as Coke or Pepsi. Put that same cola in a Coke or Pepsi container and they can't tell the difference between it and Coke or Pepsi.
These are not delusions people have, we are not just being shallow, the exact same stuff really tastes better to our brains under different circumstances.
The same reasoning applies here, even if the end result is the same, being rewarded for playing less feels better, than being punished for playing more.
The Egyptian symbolism is there presumably because it was brought by some of the people Jacob brought to the island
The Egyptian symbolism has nothing to do with Jacob for a couple reasons: First, as a Latin speaker, Jacob was born long after the height of Egypt (at the earliest around 400BC if they were speaking Old Latin) By even that earliest time very few, if any Egyptians could still write or understand hieroglyphics. Second, the same Egyptian glyphs and structures appear within the Source of Light, where Jacob has never been, and without the hieroglyph'd artifact stuck in the hole there would be no light, so it was obviously there long before Jacob.
The fact of the matter is that there is no particular reason for the Egyptian stuff. The writers obviously thought it would be all mysterious and mystical, with no depth of thought as to how it would be explained.
Saliva causes cancer, but only if swallowed in small amounts over a long period of time. -- George Carlin