I came to this same conclusion after reading Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" as well. Prior to modern cooking science, it seems like a lot of recipes involved something akin to a religious ritual that accidentally did something beneficial to your food. Now that we understand what is happening, we can use modern techniques to get much better results.

It might have been that book that talked about untapped potential for better flavors by making certain sauces in a microwave oven. The basic theory (as I recall) was that the microwaves would selectively heat oil droplets suspended in a watery sauce, and this would better extract flavor compounds into the oil while not heating the overall sauce enough to damage flavors.