LOOK (direction) is thoroughly implemented in Counterfeit Monkey, by the way. Feel free to try it out and report any bugs!
> look ne
To the northeast the temporary
barrier meets the museum.
> look nw
That way is just a corner of the
room, though we could go west to
Heritage Corner.
I think worries of the kind “If X is implemented, then the player will be mislead into trying X in every room with every object” can be overstated. Most players learn pretty quickly what kind of actions are useful and which are not, even if the ones that are not are implemented.
The real danger is that the developer spends too much time on implementing useless stuff and never finishes the game, or never wants to make another parser game.