Keith Baker wrote a lengthy blog post about his thoughts on skill challenges in 4th edition.  Keith expounds on many things in relation to skill challenges, but overall he makes some simple points that shouldn’t be forsaken to mathematical odds.

You should never build a skill challenge into an adventure in such a way that failure brings the adventure to a halt....if the players HAVE to win, then you’d better just let them win.

He sums up his post with a confession that he uses house rules to allow action points to sway skill checks, then goes on to say:

There’s certainly other house rules you could add. But I don’t consider skill challenges to be broken, and I’ve really enjoyed using the system; it’s one of my favorite aspects of 4E.

I’m not saying that the skill challenge system is broken, but it does seem odd that one the game designers is using house rules to tweak default system.  On the other hand, house rules are just a part of any good RPG, right?