If the designers are concerned that counting down, subtracting, or in some cases taking a lower number to be better can't be included in the game because they're too difficult for typical players to deal with, that says a great many very bad things about the education system those players grew up with.
Not at all. It says that game design which follows consistent patterns is (far, far, FAR) more likely to actually get played and used.
Bigger is better for some numbers and smaller is better for others just leaves folks confused and creates totally unnecessary quit moments when someone rolls a nat 1 on an attack, or a nat 20 on any roll-under check, and gets super excited only to be told "oh...sorry... that's the worst possible result..."
Being condescending or condemnatory is the antithesis of good game design, same as with good teaching (since, I mean, you literally need to teach the game.) It is not that things are impossible. It's that consistency and reinforcement are extremely useful for retention, both "player retaining the information" and "game retaining the player(s)."
I have a player who is one of the smartest people I know, well-educated, articulate, curious, eager to engage with complex subjects. It took them more than three years to remember without asking what the proper process for rolling actions was in Dungeon World, even though there are only two kinds of rolls the players ever have to make, 2d6+MOD and a class-based damage roll (meaning, for Fighter say, it's just 1d10 always, regardless of your equipment). It would be rude in the extreme to condemn them for this; it has genuinely
nothing to do with this player's intelligence, education, or participation, all of which are quite high. Instead, the information simply doesn't
stick the way they would like. It
annoys them that they need to ask so often, but they literally
couldn't remember, even though they had been doing this thing for literally three years of almost continuous weekly sessions.
Consistency is incredibly important for effective game design. Putting down those who struggle with inconsistency is unhelpful at best. I'd rather not discuss what it is at worst.