Indeed. Last time round, most respondents calmly accepted the premise that they hadn't realised the tactical error until it was too late, and then had to find some sort of desperation measure or other; I did get a couple of responses of the form "you should have done something or other different before even getting this far", but they were greatly in the minority.

Failing to spot the tactical error for ten years admittedly makes a lot more sense in the real situation than it does in the metaphor. No metaphor's perfect.

Perhaps because in the metaphor, everything’s been pared down to a bare minimum, whereas in the original it’s all messy, real-life, and infused with a different perspective.

If a metaphor was perfect, it would be an isomorphism.