I just bought Metroid : Other M for $13 Brand New

You defeated your whole post there.




Sorry. There is no excuse for the "authorization".

Removing her upgrades through some plot device instead of saying "you're not allowed to use anything until I say it's ok" would have still kept the difficulty while at the same time keeping things logical.

Have you ever been under anyone's orders? If you respect the person, and Samus did HIGHLY, you won't do anything out of turn. Her position was neven more restricive, because she also had respect for the lives of the other federation soldiers, so she didn't want to risk harming them. The weapon usage authorization had logic, since weapons could turn badly, but stuff like the Varia suit only had logic in the fact that it made the game more difficult.

Again, we could talk about how things COULD be different, but there's no point. It is what it is.