A) Beat up the simple goons and henchmen, or die trying, spending all your continues, then have an attempt at the final boss...

OR

B) Find a shortcut to the endgame final bosses and waste them, without dealing with their minions...

?

What would YOU do, what would you enjoy the most, what do you find more healthy and sane for the player's sake?? B is like a cheat, or in game shortcut.

A) of course. By cheating your way to the final boss, you would be missing out on 95% of the content the game has to offer. Why would you do that? If you don't enjoy playing the game, why play it at all?

I prefer the long route. Even if sometimes is frustrating or annoying.

Depends on how many times I've died and had to continue. At some point I feel like some games are just super difficult to troll the player. RockStar games come to mind here. So I try to go the linear route, but if the game's AI starts trolling me into Nintendo-fever (we've all had it) then I will not feel a bit guilty for trolling right back.

I'd only use B if I'd already managed to get through to the boss at least once by playing through the game properly. Otherwise you've not completed the game, have you?

I would only use the shortcut if I had already come so far and wouldn't want to start all over again. Take the original Super Mario Bros. as an example: it has 8 worlds and each has 4 levels, using the warp zone it can be beaten in five minutes. But what's the fun in that? You skip 90% of the game and never get to play all the fun levels. On the other hand, if I kept dying in the later worlds I would be so fed up with having to replay the earlier levels over and over again. That's where I would use the warp zone instead. It's like a replacement for proper saving as later games would have it.

One of the most famous example for option B is Kid Chameleon but even as a player who never finished it, taking the big shortcut isn't worthwhile because it takes away the pleasure of actually "playing" the game.

Option A is much better, I love putting a lot of credits in MAME emultor so at least I have a chance to play the whole game even if I suck :o)

Interesting. So everyone prefers to pit up against all challenges... Wouldn't it be a waste though, to reach the final boss exhausted, on your last life...? It is almost certainly a game over...

Wouldn't it be a waste to buy a game just to skip it? I play games to... well... play them ;)

In an arcade game, you're looking for the highest score for the boards. As such, you'd want to take the long route in order to get the scores for the henchmen and the bosses.

+1. This is one of the main "quests" of an arcade game. I forgot it...

Hey, if the finding the shortcut is challenging enough, that too could count as an alternative form of gameplay.
If it was simply "Go left to grow as a character, experience stuff, and eventually loop back on yourself and defeat a boss on your right"
vs "Go right and defeat boss"

then obviously, the first would be more meaningful.

Yes.

Definitely A, because as others have said, in an arcade game its all about the score, at least to me. Kill 'em all!

Both. It's just a matter of my current mood. Fun fact; I reached the final level of the first Super Mario Bros. with just one life as small Mario. Despite having no idea what to expect, I somehow managed to finish the game.