Gradient Descent is not a Pointcrawl
This is not a tirade against pointcrawls. This is a mind virus that has been couped up in my mind that I had to get out. I have enjoyed point crawls! I have been enjoying Gradient Descent. I do not get the same dice feel from them. Popular reviews and discussions hail Gradient Descent as a pointcrawl dungeon. Yet, I don't think it is. There is nothing left for you to fill in with this dungeon. All the rooms and their connections state what they are. Sure there are not descriptions for hallways. But that doesn't mean they aren't there. GD's divergence is having you fill in the details of these connections, but not their distance or cost. Pointcrawls often tax or strain PCs as they go between nodes but there isn't a cost to travel here.
Its connections are not abstracted
Case Study: Garbage Heap! One of my parties started in this room and through adventuring made connections to the all the adjoining rooms. I had them map the space and said "Flowchart maps are fine" but they took it upon themselves to draw it room by room. The scale is off sure, but there are "3D" Connections between the Sewage Pipes to the Toilets and the way the 4 way intersection looks is the perspective of someone "walking the space."
GD doesn't cheat connections. Each room logically slots into the physical space.
Another session with a different group of players had them traveling through the factory. I don't see how any argument for a point crawl could stand up to a series of steps along a massive conveyor belt.
Presentation is not final authority
An overwhelming piece of evidence people use to call Gradient Descent a pointcrawl is to say that its map is presented as such. But that is just an aesthetic interaction with the dungeon. Reading the rooms and especially playing through them you feel the physical space of each connection. There is no clever abstraction mechanic to make it seem larger than it really is. Using the descriptions in the text and a whiteboard you could get a perfectly usable map of this space. Often times a Point Crawl uses some mechanic to make transitions unique or taxing, Holy Mountain Shaker's travel system comes to mind. I don't think I could draw that map based upon descriptions but more accurately I don't think any two maps drawn for that dungeon would look the same. Gradient Descent's focus on physicality makes it something that could be easily reproduced by multiple people.
Buzzword Dogma
I think Gradient Descent is one of the best modules ever put to paper. A large part of that is how it's presented to be run with as little friction as possible. Friction is an old school feature, a grognard tendency. Modern games, in large part, aim to reduce the cantankerous nature of running games by simplifying systems or making something a more usable product. Run enough old modules and you'll find yourself getting proficient in the language of Free Wheeling. Encounter dice, real time torches, and yes- pointcrawls are all tools to reign in Free Wheeling design. But, old school concepts and old school design are not confined to being hard to parse. Gradient Descent has the look of something frictionless to run. Burgeoning underneath is the copy resistant blue and 10 feet grid. The need to put things in categories alongside the need to attach design lingo to modules (from the community, not the publisher) then shapes the entire discussion around how the module is brought up and dissected. Gradient Descent could be a study in how to present a classic megadungeon compactly. Instead it is the "Pointcrawl Megadungeon"
Where do you think you are?
I think the easiest way to answer if something is a point crawl or not is to ask "Where am I?" Do so earnestly: if this dungeon were a place you visited everyday could you trace your steps back home?