[Kromm]

I definitely interpret Intelligence Analysis as "the skill of getting hints from the GM when we, the players, are stuck." To use it, the PCs need to have actually gone out and gathered information, be that through Observation or fancy uses of Electronics Operation to spy on people, Filch to steal files, Forensics to examine clues, Interrogation to grill prisoners, Research to dig around in stacks of documents, or even Current Affairs to pore over the news and look for hidden meaning. I typically have some "How secret is this?" penalty in mind and let each intelligence-gathering effort knock off -1. Success on the Intelligence Analysis roll gives enough exposition to move the plot along; failure mostly means gathering more intel and trying again.

I have no problem with this approach because I don't like forcing the players to depend only on their real-life IQ scores and skills to solve mysteries that their alter-egos are supposedly experts at solving. I wouldn't make them pick a mocked-up lock instead of rolling vs. Lockpicking and I wouldn't hand them 1,500 pages of spreadsheets instead of allowing an Accounting roll, so I have no issues with puzzle-solving via skill use.