Ok, I want to pose a situation.

A character in the same cabal as me had to get an item for his imm. It just so happened to be on the sixth circle. A few of us knew of the item with previous characters. We created a group (a rather poor group) and ventured down to get it. To get from the fifth to the sixth, the group had to do something, it was imperative. I kept my mouth shut, and we got hosed.

So a bit later we try again. We get to the fifth, but this time I let everyone in on what must be done, and we do it, and we get by. The only way I knew that we had to do this 'something' was from carrying over information from a previous character that had done it before. Granted, we got hosed again from some shady looking multiplying devils, but was the line crossed? Hell is a great area but I see absolutely no way of getting far in hell without using knowledge from other characters or from various parts of reading the Divine Comedy.

Here is where I would insert other people doing the same thing I did but three or four years ahead of me.