Somehow, they knew as early as the first scenario of the first full campaign that searching the encounter deck is really hard in true solo. It makes sense to allow solo players to double the search number, especially when clues aren't that easy to get anyway.
But somehow rather than moving forward the design team has moved backward in the years since then. The finales of the dream eaters (side A) and now apparently even of Hemlock Vale (otherwise FANTASTIC for true solo) commit this utterly unfathomable mistake. But why?