No, the point is quite different. The point is that trigger zones, in which the player's stealth skills are completely ignored, are implemented very poorly, they have no logic.
In such zones, without any adequate reason, zombies wake up and attack the player, and this looks like punishment for mistakes that the player did not commit, just like it was with the poisoning, which was eventually removed. Then Joel also said that the poisoning looks like a punishment for the player even if he did not make mistakes, and therefore it should be removed.
Trigger zones now work as punishment for imperfect mistakes.
It seems to me that the solution may be awake screamer zombies who can hide behind corners in such zones and could wake up the rest if they notice or hear the player. It was logical and would not look as punishment for imperfect mistakes as it is now. True, for this, you will have to completely rebuild the level design so that even with such zombies, players have a chance to eliminate them before they raise the alarm.
Such zones could be called a surprise if they accidentally appeared in completely different locations and in different places of these locations )