I don't see how not seeing your opponents piece setup can be a bad thing. If you know the rules beforehand you can adopt that into your strategy. Plus if you set up your pieces to fight for certain squares, while making sure you have no obvious or identifiable weaknesses, then if your opponent is attacking or fighting for those same squares you have an offensive/defensive scheme already in place, and if they are not you completely dominate those squares without a single move. The give/take is that your opponent gets other squares. Knowing this you c_a_n set up a formation that provides for offense and defence without seeing your opponents setup beforehand.