Quoted from Rarehero:

There are two problems with the gap.
1. It’s wider than Pedojohn’s normal gap. A friend from Stern told me this was a mistake, but was caught too late to change. (There goes the great design theory)
2. Design elements like gaps don’t exist in a vacuum. It has to take into account the rest of the design & the game’s rules. Most of Pedojohn’s earlier games had simple rules and easier layouts...like Congo, for example. Even with the gap, Congo’s not that hard to keep a game going - and even you aren’t good at it, the rules are very simple (collect the diamonds, pretty much). So a a bigger gap on a pin like that is fine. With Goatf****rs’ other punishing design elements & linear multi-mode ruleset, the extra wide gap is just purely poorly planned design. On top of that - once Dwight knew how the game played, he should have designed the rules to work better with a brutal gameplay design. He didn’t, and unfortunately that made the game worse.