Dot-to-dot two dot zero

Sorry that it's been over a year since my last post, but as a hibernating ectotherm, some of you may know that many brine shrimp drop their metabolic rate to less than 1 percent of their active rate. Just switching on the old lappy is an effort in itself.

Fortunately, Dave (who loyal readers will remember is my oldest friend and something of a shrimp evangelist), has been immersing himself in the long tail of the web. As a keen player of puzzle games and word searches, he recently challenged me to explain why, in this age of always-on connectivity and increasing computer literacy, he should have to "Complete dot-to-dot puzzles in the order specified by the creator of the puzzle? Why can't I join the dots in the order that I want to?" . I thought he had a point. More importantly, is this the first documented case of what Dave has called 'Dot-to-dot two dot zero'?