That’s a good point, Airk.
I think there are different ways to interpret the GM’s role in these games as well as different to interpret what “making an MC move” means.
Most people I’ve seen interpret the PbtA structure as one where the MC has a strong responsibility to drive play forward, frame scenes, introduce threats (and Fronts and Love Letters), “make the world dangerous”, “keep their lives interesting”, “be a fan of the PCs”, and “respond with fuckery and intermittent rewards”. The directive to respond to moments of quiet or indecision with new threats and developments is another example of this perspective.
In comparison, OSR-style gaming usually means that the GM is trying hard to be an impartial referee, and therefore avoid any Principles like the ones I’m quoting. The GM in this style of play is quite passive, allowing the mechanics and the players to pace the session and decide what’s happening.
Those two approaches enable “player cleverness” in very different ways.
Now, I can see an interpretation of all this which reads things like “make their lives interesting” and “be a fan” in a very strict sense of “when that works”, given the circumstances of play.
And I can see an interpretation where “make an MC move” will generally be asking questions and telling the consequences and asking. (In other words, “yes, I suppose you could do that, but be careful because you’ll probably need to buy more mules,” as opposed to “ninjas jump through the window!”)
I think it’s possible but it’s not how most people approach these games. If you did that, you’d certainly move closer to these game design styles being heavily overlapping.
When I think of moments of “player cleverness” in PbtA games, they’re often about clever ways to apply the mechanics to create interesting situations. (I once responded to a bunch of people trying to frame my character as a fake “Messiah” by taking the “healing touch” move on the spot and bringing someone back from the dead, for example.) In the kind of player cleverness play I think the OP is talking about, it would be operating with a different focus, and it’s usually not related to the rules or mechanics (in fact, it’s desirable to remove as many of those mechanics as possible so as to enable that player cleverness).
I think it would be a very interesting exercise to try to design a PbtA game explicitly aimed at enabling player cleverness challenge. Whereas in most PbtA games, the moves describe what characters do in that genre, in this design you might need to rewrite moves as things you try to avoid doing. That could be a really cool game, actually - your moves might be things like “when you’re caught out in the open without any supplies,” for example. But it would definitely look and feel quite different from most mainstream PbtA design, I think!