to'eh ba'sadeh

The Torah tells us that when Yosef was sent to look for his brothers, he could not find them.  A man found Yosef "to'eh ba'sadeh," wandering in the fields, and asked him what he was looking for,  "I am looking for my brothers," Yosef replied, and the man then directed him to Dosan to find them.

Do we really need to know that Yosef stopped to ask for directions?  Do we really need a blow by blow report of that conversation?

Obviously there is more going on here than a conversation about directions.  "Va'yimtza'eihu ish," the man offering directions found Yosef.  Normally you go looking for help when you need directions -- the person offering directions doesn't go looking for and find you.  And normally when you ask for directions you specify a place, a street, and address -- "I'm looking for my brothers" is none of the above.  (Parenthetically, this also hints to a deterioration of relations between Yosef and his brothers.  Surely the brothers had certain regular places that they went, yet Yosef seems clueless as to where to find them.  It seems like he spent so little time with them that he was not aware of their habits or usual haunts.)  Why would Yosef assume this man who he has never met would know who his brothers are or where they are?  These clues are perhaps what led Rashi to explain that the unnamed man here is the angel Gavriel.  By including this episode the Torah is revealing G-d's fingerprints all over what happened.  There was no chance Yosef would not find his brothers, return home, and avoid the fate that awaited him. 

But if Rashi is correct that the man Yosef met is an angel, the question that begs asking (and Ibn Ezra does the asking) is why the Torah doesn't explicitly tell us so.  Why couch the man's identity in mystery and rely on us to infer the truth? 

"V'hinei anachnu m'almim alumim b'toch ha'sadeh..."  Yosef in his dreams sees himself as standing in a field, his brothers bowing subserviently to him.  By bringing their "dibasam ra'ah" to their father, but placing himself on a pedestal above them, might Yosef have misjudged his brothers and not treated them favorably enough?  Might this be the "to'eh ba'sadeh" the Torah is hinting at (Mishnas Sachir, Alshich)? 

I think this may be why the Torah never explicitly reveals to us the identity of the unnamed man Yosef met.  Perhaps this was a final chance for Yosef to make amends.  If an angel could appear to be an "ish," and we only know otherwise based on inference and clues, might Yosef's brothers, whose crimes he reported to their father, in truth be far more saintly than he gave them credit for, but he was missing the subtle clues and signs?