[atoav]

I think exposing more of the internals helps. Consider what a mechanic can extract from the sound of an engine: in that sound a lot of information about the state of that engine is encoded. And it is a lot more than some programmer could abstract by simply having the motor vibrate if it is okay and have it not vibrate if it isn't. This however means you have to trust the user they will devolpe a sense of meaningful differentiation.

Physical objects interact with their environment in certain ways as a reflection of what they are, it is certainly an interesting question how this could be extended into the digital domain.