Revealing mistake: When Strahm's phone says "no signal" there is actually a three bar signal. (00:06:35)
Continuity mistake: When Hoffman has the orange blanket put on him by the paramedic after escaping the Gideon Building, she puts it on him twice. It is also at one point not covering his right shoulder, but in the next shot, when Fisk talks to him, it is. (00:11:00)
Answer: The games of Jigsaw and his followers were always intended to be extremely difficult, but with a small chance for survival based on the actions of the player. Hoffman probably wouldn't have cared either day if anyone else survived, but likely anticipated that most of the others would die. (Strahm's line about everyone being supposed to die with Hoffman being the soul survivor was more conjecture than anything.) In terms of killing Jeff- both Jeff and Strahm were emotional hot-heads, so in all likelihood one or both was going to die if they encountered each other. Strahm's water cube was intended to be an execution tool for breaking the rules. That's why Hoffman seemed so shocked that he miraculously survived.