Yeah, I agree, 100%... Which is exactly why I would like to try it.
I wrote an article recently (
plug plug plug!) about why Phantasialand being the maze it is is a good thing, but faults are still faults, regardless the nice flip side. Phantasialand isn't accessibility friendly, and that
is a problem. Can you make an environment that impressively immersive without compromising on acessibility? Probably not, but I think operational smoothness is more important than what Phantasialand does right. Not massively more important where you need one which foregoes the other, but slightly more important to where if I was in charge of the design, I wouldn't want streets quite as narrow, or stairs, everywhere.
As for, how can one be creative without obstacle... Obstacles can help creativity, for sure. Solving problems creatively is how we got Nemesis. But what is Phantasialand's obstacle? Space? All they're doing to solve that issue is removing old rides, they're not taking the Blackpool approach because that wouldn't be right for that park. In fact, Phantasialand box each ride or area in with tall theming, actually limiting their working space further, but what that creates is an illusion not of space, but of lots to explore. You can be creative without obstacles, you can do whatever you want without obstacles.
If you're sacrificing say... Wheelchair accessibility, for a totally immersive environment, there's a problem.
Or if for example like Legoland, if you're sacrificing throughout for gimmicky interactivity, there's a problem.
But if you're Cedar Point and have practically no obstacle, yet choose to build boring rubbish, perhaps in the name of operational perfection, without opening your eyes to all the things you could do to make that boring thing that little bit less boring, there's also a problem!
Operations > everything else,
but everything else still matters, however the industry is mostly black and white. That's why Disney are, when all is said and done, the industry leaders. That's why they said no to a Potter unless the space could be reimagined to operational perfection. They didn't want to deal with a space not operationally sound to cope with the volumes of people it undoubtedly would.