that can cause errors when netsuite does actually evaluate your script file, since you now have a dependency it can't evaluate

No. This is how NetSuite evaluates all dependencies in the

define

block: it checks to see whether the module exists. Beyond that, the module should have valid JavaScript in it. You are confusing, on the one hand, validation of the inside of the script for things like entry point functions with some kind of dependency analysis. Those are two different things.