[marcosdumay]

> "We use X technique because it looks good."

Replaces "looks good" with a more generic "gets the right answer" and you'll notice that phrase repeated on any simulation context where computers are not powerful yet to work from first principles.

If you want a safe place to look, look at chemistry. They have simulations that vary in complexity by a huge number of orders of magnitude. You'll see those non-natural techniques that "look good" get progressively applied as the simulation gets slower and slower. It works really well, but once computers are fast enough, everybody just throws them by the window.