I was providing a silly example but there is a continuum as you’ve identified. My point is that it’s not your place to decide how far along this continuum to go. It’s the job of the person asking the question.
The X-Y response shows up frequently on support forums where people are asking questions that show they haven't yet grasped the system they are working on.
X-Y answers also clog up Google search results when sometimes my problem literally actually is X and not Y.