I find it interesting that both of the games that you cite as potential references for design (and they're both good games) are heavily mechanized.

There is a difference in the mind of players, legitimately so, between "information that is simply obscure" and "information that is deliberately obscured." If a "machine" gives you information that is partial or hazy or mis-interpretable, then that's okay. In this case, any kind of randomizer counts because that's exactly what they do.

But if another person at the table does so, the interaction changes. It becomes adversarial. That counts both ways, of course, which is why you get the "killer GM" trope. When one of the pillars of the game interaction is to obscure information before at the players can make reasonable judgments about it, it becomes a win state to make sure that the other party doesn't get what they want.

That's a real problem for the sort of thing.

I would have to start to break this down into something usable by trying to put together a list of traits which make the game worthwhile. What is or are the key elements which communicate this state of play?

That's where everything has to start.