Question bothered me as one of my custom levels - 'Moss & Iron' - requires miner both to block and release crowd. With NeoLemmix aid it's pretty simple, otherwise not that much (especially after I've tweaked playtime and available functions to absolute minimum for sake of final version)
Don't be bothered, I would guess the majority of custom levels for NeoLemmix are made with
Directional select in mind and without it would be rather tedious.
I would even say a good portion of the custom content nowdays requires the usage of frame-stepping, skill-shadows, replays.... to at least some extend.
I would explain it in the following way:NeoLemmix (NL) is more puzzle-focused than Lemmings 1 (L1) which I would call more execution-focused.
In NL (and also Lix I would say) we tend to quite often demand rather precise tricks and assignments with a minimal set of skills, but offer the help of things like directional select, frame-stepping, skill-shadows, replay function.....etc as a help. Solving the puzzle and identifing the used tricks and mechanics is therefore the core while the execution is secondary.
L1 is more forgiving in the precision, complexity and skill set department and the solution is often not that hard to see, but as a tradeoff offers no helpers --> a fail results in a restart from 0. As a result your correct execution matters more (that includes getting the correct facing Lemming in a crowd for example), while the puzzle is often secondary.