This was my staunch opinion for a long time, but I've actually come around to the idea that many games are improved by having some degree of hidden information which is in-theory trackable by players, since it allows a certain sort of player to take their turn much more rapidly (i.e. it mitigates "analysis paralysis"). I don't think it's true for every game, obviously, (IMO it would be a poor house rule to make in 1830, for instance), but I've become a lot more willing to trust designers' decisions on what information should be public vs. hidden as my taste in board games has developed over time.

(For the record, I have no opinion on the value of hidden vs public information as a design decision in Catan.)