Nice article Petra.

Also, the "thinking backwards" idea is interesting (and maybe intuitive).

I heard of one well known engineer / teacher who said that when solving a tough problem just find out what has already been done and then try the "exact opposite" (or 180 degs of their direction). While this thought is not exactly "thinking backwards" there is a parallel in "doing the opposite" (note that sometimes there are numerous opposites to a situation/problem to solve...).

I believe the "repair the asperities idea" is off target but nice try anyway IMHO. Hopwever, if the same effort and resources went into data transformation /acquistion tools (in the right areas) then I think there would be more leaps and bounds beig made....

Jusr another $.02