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It is a valid point that there is a cost to this amnesia (and a similar but smaller one with herbs of rage). That said, I think you're overstating the case somewhat for removing the memory wiping.
The main difference between the costs in the two games is that Crawl has persistent levels, which will make loss of map much more annoying than in Sil, which does not. We considered having Mewlips make you forget the flavours of items that you'd discovered, but rejected this for similar reasons to Crawl's amnesia-removal: it would be very annoying and really encourage the player to make external notes on their discoveries.
The memory wiping in Sil is a much more local effect, and more cosmetic than anything else, since the levels at that depth are not vast, and you will normally have a reasonable impression remaining of how things connected and where the stairs are, but perhaps be unable to recall precise details. Its benefit is that it feels cool and exciting rather than that it produces particularly interesting choices (whereas a lot of the game is geared towards those interesting choices).
Now, that isn't a huge benefit, but it's a pretty small cost, too. My feeling is that the size of the benefit outweighs the cost (but I could be wrong).
By the way, I suspect you are making the annoyance larger by taking screenshots (if you are in fact doing so). My guess is that you would enjoy it more with the added challenge of not using screenshots or other memory aids to record the dungeon on encountering a Mewlip (and this is how it is intended to be approached). Most of the time you're likely to find you lose nothing except cumbersome computer interaction; occasionally you may misremember and dive into the wrong corridor, and this could get you killed, but that's actually pretty cool if you can conceive this as a valid effect of the memory-wiping rather than an annoyance that only happened because you couldn't be bothered to screenshot-scum.
Does that begin to persuade you?
The main difference between the costs in the two games is that Crawl has persistent levels, which will make loss of map much more annoying than in Sil, which does not. We considered having Mewlips make you forget the flavours of items that you'd discovered, but rejected this for similar reasons to Crawl's amnesia-removal: it would be very annoying and really encourage the player to make external notes on their discoveries.
The memory wiping in Sil is a much more local effect, and more cosmetic than anything else, since the levels at that depth are not vast, and you will normally have a reasonable impression remaining of how things connected and where the stairs are, but perhaps be unable to recall precise details. Its benefit is that it feels cool and exciting rather than that it produces particularly interesting choices (whereas a lot of the game is geared towards those interesting choices).
Now, that isn't a huge benefit, but it's a pretty small cost, too. My feeling is that the size of the benefit outweighs the cost (but I could be wrong).
By the way, I suspect you are making the annoyance larger by taking screenshots (if you are in fact doing so). My guess is that you would enjoy it more with the added challenge of not using screenshots or other memory aids to record the dungeon on encountering a Mewlip (and this is how it is intended to be approached). Most of the time you're likely to find you lose nothing except cumbersome computer interaction; occasionally you may misremember and dive into the wrong corridor, and this could get you killed, but that's actually pretty cool if you can conceive this as a valid effect of the memory-wiping rather than an annoyance that only happened because you couldn't be bothered to screenshot-scum.
Does that begin to persuade you?
I probably wouldn't feel comfortable posting a character where I used screenshotting to dodge mewlips (or dragons, which are much worse).
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