Having just watched CirclMastr's Let's Play of Covert Action on YouTube, and playing it myself (and I think I came across this article too), I have to say that

Having just watched CirclMastr's Let's Play of Covert Action on YouTube, and playing it myself (and I think I came across this article too), I have to say that Covert Action really feels like what it ended up as: an unpolished rush-job that someone put a lot of thought into that maybe didn't come out onscreen. There's a lot of good there and further development of the ideas would have turned it into a real classic. There's a reason it's one of the long-lasting underdogs; it's not just Sid Meier's name. I'm glad it exists, and for anyone who wants to teach kids about very basic crypto (i.e. letter replacement, removing spaces, etc.), I suggest the "training" for the Crypto skill; it's also good to go and brush up on your own skills. Similarly, the wiretapping is a genuinely interesting logic puzzle which can be used to teach the concept of physically representing 1/0 and logic gates (and how the result may not always be what you expect). As far as "The Covert Action Rule", I guess the question is how you approach the game. If you look at it in terms of "older" games (i.e. Zork et al), having a notepad beside the computer to take notes seemed the most logical thing in the world to me. In many cases while playing games with complex storylines and puzzle-solving, it still does. I never found the tactical sections making me "lose track" of why I was in a building - either I was there to grab an Agent or I was there to get information to go and do so that I hadn't gotten by wiretapping or crypto.