Most of the time it feels like the people who are somewhat successful in those branches simply got lucky by randomly mixing elements A, B and C in an unexpected manner and boom -- magic.

In other words, things progress painfully slow and almost always it's due to intuitive shower/sleep revelations than anything else.

You could read about a fundamental difference between a properly controlled, replicable scientific experiment and computer simulation according to some abstract/unverified model and why results of such simulations cannot be substituted for experimental results or any form of evidence in my older comments.