Yah, I actually did the pandora's box quite easily using the 3 correct and then find the fourth one method, although I picked the hardest symbol to do last and it took a while to recognize from the swirling circles which dissapear in 0.5 seconds. Imagine doing this in a life and death situation like Valanice though, this would be extremely tough in that situation or if there was a time limit.
Haha everything looks like a background thing, the first time I did king's quest vi a long time ago I found the plank easily, but recently when I started over again to finish it, I thought the plank was a background object and got stuck cause I forgot.
The toughest thing I went through was guessing rumplestiltskin's name, I kept thinking to myself, I spelt his name correctly the first time, respelt it, then respelt it backwards and you only get three guesses, so I stopped playing until I picked it up again with hint.