Save scumming, Fleeing, barrels, sneaking, using cheat codes, difficulty adjustments, etc.
It's an open world for you to exploit, do as you please.
Developers might have a preference to how they want you to experience the story at the end of the day which means if you want to follow that path you better suppress your desire to exploit those things.
The developers pushing resources towards dealing with issues of stealth seems to indicate, for me, that it is core to their experience they intend while fleeing has some restrictions it ultimately isn't that big of a deal because you'll just reload and try again for a better outcome or the entire purpose is for the player to test out his or her tactical skills not cheese the system down.
Yet, leaving cheese in and not dealing with it probably indicates leniency or creative solutions. After all, there are speed runs, glitch runs, ironman mode etc etc.
At some point trying to adjust or fix a mechanic becomes way too heavy and you either say it's a broken mechanic or just let it happen because it fits with the system's goal which is to associate with certain playstyles.
tl;dr every system has a breaking point, so it's give and take across various playstyles.
