That's an interesting distinction. I get the elimination interpretation -- literally, as you play you eliminate possible letters -- but I haven't considered the discovery element. What do you mean by that?
As a person who works with words, I'm using Wordle to discover as many words as I can. That's why I always have a different starting word. When it's analyzing my plays, Wordle always says, "You've eliminated all but __ words in my dictionary." That's the opposite of what I try to do!
I, also, am interested in how different letters combine or don't, but that's a secondary motive for me to play.