Other mistake: Virtually all the text in the various articles and reports in this movie are fake. Look at the John Kramer article at the very beginning, even at first glance you can tell it's an article about pilgrims or something and has nothing to do with John Kramer. Also, when Staham is going through the articles he found on Hoffman's sister, you can very plainly see that every article (there are a few) is just the same typed out story copied and pasted into various formats. (This doesn't even require slow motion, just pay attention.) (00:11:45)
Other mistake: When Agent Strahm first starts investigating, he uses the FBI computer to look up Seth's name. He is heard typing many more characters, very quickly, than actually show up in the 'search' field on the screen. (00:29:20)
Other mistake: Seth is told that in 30 seconds the pendulum will drop low enough to cut his body and in 60 seconds it will cut him in half. We then see the clock start ticking. After Seth has crushed his hands, we see the clock - 46 seconds have passed and yet the pendulum hasn't cut him yet. (00:04:35)
Answer: The games of Jigsaw and his followers were always intended to be extremely difficult, but with a small chance for survival based on the actions of the player. Hoffman probably wouldn't have cared either day if anyone else survived, but likely anticipated that most of the others would die. (Strahm's line about everyone being supposed to die with Hoffman being the soul survivor was more conjecture than anything.) In terms of killing Jeff- both Jeff and Strahm were emotional hot-heads, so in all likelihood one or both was going to die if they encountered each other. Strahm's water cube was intended to be an execution tool for breaking the rules. That's why Hoffman seemed so shocked that he miraculously survived.