Again you haven't shown that Nintendo is following your idea, so saying that Nintendo agrees with you isn't going to give your argument any support.
Nintendo only cares about gamers views, not reviewers, and actually most people who play the game aren't going to care if the guide dies in that manner, as long as it doesn't end up restarting the level and wasting time, and respawing would prevent that.
Different genre, different audience, than with a horror game, with Mario it would be a perfect way, your way would just result in a lot of frustrated people. Nintendo wants to build long term customers, and upstream people, that requires making sure people don't get frustrated.
Predictions:Sales of Wii Fit will surpass the combined sales of the Grand Theft Auto franchiseLifetime sales of Wii will surpass the combined sales of the entire Playstation family of consoles by 12/31/2015 Wii hardware sales will surpass the total hardware sales of the PS2 by 12/31/2010 Wii will have 50% marketshare or more by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!! It was a little over 48% only)Wii will surpass 45 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2008 (I was wrong!! Nintendo Financials showed it fell slightly short of 45 million shipped by end of 2008)Wii will surpass 80 Million in lifetime sales by the end of 2009 (I was wrong!! Wii didn't even get to 70 Million)
