I do like being unable to pause over opening the menu without pausing, but it it is mainly for what you CAN do when you have access to the pause menu, you can change settings and read the help menu which can help you figure out what to do.
I feel like it should be some middle ground where you normally can't pause, but there would be some way to open the menu if necessary. Maybe pressing Esc normally plays the deny sound without opening it, but if you hold Esc for a bit it opens the menu. Something like that.