I think the later games may have actually made this harder to inflict on yourself, but I'm always very afraid of getting right to the plot-related items in an investigation and then being plot-whisked away from the scene before having a chance to poke around at everything else.

I know the game would never do that in a way that would make you lose out on something actually critical to completing the game, but what if I missed a single line of dialog by not looking at that potted plant?!