Workflow: "merge node" might allow check of unreachable transitions as "pass" condition

The requested improvement is:
Assumption: There exists optional branches in a workflow.
If merging the outcome of these optional branches, if the branch does not exist (as it is optional), the merge node should detect the branch as dead and count it as positive, rather than waiting forver for this branch outcome, which will never arrive.

This would simplify the current solution for this type of problem (see attached screenshot of workflow) in lowering the number of transitions to handle.