In Economic Modeling, Can Hindsight Lead to Foresight?

In thinking more about my last posting here on failed Wall Street quant models and the dimensionality curse I started to wonder whether we could ever be more than the archetypal Monday morning quarterbacks: commenting brilliantly on all the reasons why X should never have happened, after X has already happened and done its damage. Can the mistakes of hindsight lead to foresight? In other...