My wife and I just beat Ill-Fated Exhibit . . . and I'm not sure if it was just our luck, but I have to ask, why on Earth does the game load you up with so many weapons and pointless trinkets? I don't mind the occasional red herring, but we wasted an entire turn getting one Search puzzle open, just to get an Elder Sign. To evade monsters. Of which there are none. And I felt bad that my wife, playing Marie Lambeau (with nothing but the Shriveling spell), was unable to ever once use her special ability. (Y'know what would have been nice? Having any noncombat spell instead.)

I don't know if there's some way for that scenario to play out where monsters suddenly pop up and become relevant. If not, then it feels like they were trying to pad a simple 5x4 logic puzzle into a few hours of meaningless exploration.

I 've only played the scenario once, but I remember having monsters towards the end and I also remember that if you don't get the Elder Sign the game becomes more difficult (there was a mythos event asking about it if I'm not mistaken)

Huh, weird. We didn't see any of that in our playthrough, and IMO we weren't exactly speedy at completing it!