Aren't some of the problems you're talking about also exist with "ALL" ?
Generally not, because ALL is only allowed with a limited number of verbs, typically GET and DROP. (I don't think I've ever seen a game that allows EXAMINE ALL, except maybe some Infocom games.) You can only get something that is not carried and drop something that is carried. Inform 6 has an "entry point routine" called ChooseObjects that you can customise to define what's acceptable for an ALL operation for a particular verb. For example, when you GET ALL, you don't want it trying to get scenery and giving a long list of rejection messages. Adventuron doesn't have anything equivalent to ChooseObjects, but the default GET ALL and DROP ALL now work fairly well after the feedback received in earlier game jams.
In a recent discussion on intfiction.org, I spoke about the complications of WEAR ALL when you have layered clothing and presented a little test program to illustrate the point. In this scenario, it was actually more efficient to wear the individual items of clothing than to WEAR ALL and have half the items give rejection messages. For example, if WEAR ALL resulted in the shirt being worn before the singlet, when it got to the singlet it would say, "You'll have to take the shirt off first." So you then had to do an inventory to see what you were wearing, remove a number of items and wear all the items again individually.