Yes, it is good to design for the player.
But you are also designing for you and your team.
Think about yourselves as developers, about your strengths and limitations.
When you make design decisions, you should be thinking about how easy it will be to implement.
Can you design it to reduce the workload on the programmer? Or the artist?
In architecture, or industrial design, they think about the cost of assembly.
They make decisions to improve the ease of construction.
Yes, you are designing a game to be played.
But first you need it to be built.
Tex Barnes 