Disagree with this on a couple points. For one, I found two different secret solutions that came up after I'd jumped into the prison.
[spoilers]
Got propositioned by both Wael and by Skaen later on. Was talking with a buddy of mine who beat the game last night, and he didn't get either of those options. I'm still not sure what I did differently.
I also think there is one single question in this game - they just don't spell it out for you like PST did. It's funny because I think you identified it without realizing it. If you look at all the companions, Thaos, Lady Webb, the Engwithans, Iovara, even the player character, they all have questions they're asking, as you pointed out, and they're mostly different questions, but what they have in common is they can't find answers for them. You're looking at that as an overuse of PST's open-ended question idea, when I think it's turning it on its head, asking the costs of questions like that.