I had totally forgotten about Bowzer and Michael Burger as hosts. Bowzer's version of HS had some format issues. A wrong decision by the player gave the square to the opponent, even if it resulted in a win.
There was a (IMO) valid reason for this: Due to time constraints, this rule was to maximize the number of rounds of HS as possible, especially considering this was played for money whereas the MG segment was played for points (plus the HS segment was relatively shorter than the Match Game segment. Think about it, do you really want to risk playing only one round and win a maximum of $225 just for purists' sake when you could play 3-4 rounds and win $800 - $1000 by dropping the can't win by default rule?
I am not necessarily agreeing with this, but I wholeheartedly respect why it was done.