Going back to your more general original post. Well first, it's really too long and I wonder if anyone bothered to read all of it.
I also don't think it helps that your post carries an underlying bias that so-called "animated picture puzzle" (which by the way is not a term used anywhere else) is somehow less than so-called "picture puzzle game" (also not a term in used, at least not in the very narrow, specific way you are using here). The history of NeoLemmix shifting away from Lemmings, and yet still remain popular, would indicate most people here in fact don't see what you called "animated picture puzzle" as a minus, if anything they probably see it as a plus.
But anyway, I think got a very rough sense of it from skimming. I think I can still skip over most of what you wrote though, because at the end of the day, you as a player do have the freedom to choose
not to use certain features, or to impose additional requirements on yourself regarding how you play. For example, just don't use framestepping and pausing if you want a higher degree of challenge in executing the level solution, or at least keep its use to as minimum as you can bear. Interested in solving the level as quickly as you can? Well the post-level screen tells you how much time you've taken, now replay the level again and see if you can beat that number.
So really, I don't see a lot of NeoLemmix features being restrictive in how you personally want to play the levels.
However, a video game version is able to present further challenges:
- Now solve it with the spawn rate at 99.
- Now solve it with the lemmings moving at double speed.
- Now solve it with an (enforced) time limit of 1:00.
- Now we've put in a hidden trap; see if the same solution works (this couldn't be done in a picture puzzle because there would be no way to accurately place the trap in the picture without revealing its location).
- etc...
Except that's not how most other video games work either. If a game developer tries to pull this by literally creating multiple levels that are the exact same level except for one little difference, people will rightly complain that the developer is lazy and can't be bothered to actually create a new level. At the same time, achievements in other games generally do not work by changing the level. So there could be achievement requiring user to solve the level within N minutes--the player doesn't fail the level if they exceeded N, he/she simply doesn't get the associated achievement. Other games may have a difficulty setting which alters the level, but the alterations are usually far deeper than changing one minor superficial factor like time limit or release rate. (Instead, typically you get more enemies, stronger enemies, and/or trickier terrain to navigate [such as shorter platforms in platformer games].)
In short, your example above doesn't seem to even match the reality of most other video games even when we take out NeoLemmix and all the official Lemmings games.
The question that naturally arises from this analysis is: do we really want Lemmings to become nothing more than an animated picture puzzle game?
Based on how the community had behaved for the past several years, I'm afraid the answer leans a lot more towards "yes". If this matters to you so much, your strategy really shouldn't be to convince us, you should try to find and invite more like-minded people here who actually enjoys more your style of levels, then you can at least have those people play and enjoy the kinds of levels that you seem really intent to make, but currently avoid given the tastes of the community.
Or, like namida said, you could always try to learn computer programming and create your own fork of NeoLemmix changed exactly to your heart's desire. Although I think you'll probably still need to reach out to some new like-minded people to increase chance of people actually playing your version.
For better or worse, over the past 5-10 years there really hasn't been anyone here who seems to hold your viewpoints quite so strongly and passionately; you are kind of unique in that sense. I have my theories as to why things had evolved like this, but that can be left for another time and post.
Tetris is usually classified as a puzzle video game, and is one of the greatest examples of puzzle and action/execution being combined.
I realize Tetris is often labeled as a puzzle-style game, but then again I think puzzle games as a category has been made extremely broad. Personally I would argue Tetris's "puzzle" elements are far, far weaker compared to its action elements. By virtue of having the sequence of Tetris pieces be randomized and very limited lookahead, you are severely limited in your ability to plan ahead, and then together with the ever increasing speed, the game naturally trends towards forcing the player to become more and more reactionary in their playing. Really, probably the only reason we can't call it an action game is because it doesn't conform to the trope of having a single character that you have direct control over their movements. Your average Tricky-rated level in original Lemmings probably has more planning ahead involved than you'd ever do in Tetris.