Well, I don't agree with you entirely at least. It is not at all evident to me that looking at the past helps avoid new mistakes. It might help avoiding the exact mistakes that were made before, but it is highly probable that the mistakes that, again, in hindsight, should have been avoided are not the same mistakes as those that others made before.

In fact, I think there are plenty of examples throughout history of how it is the desire to avoid certain previous mistakes that directly lead to new mistakes being made.

I do agree that the lessons to be learned can be found equally among previous failures as in successes. In the same way that I think it is problematic to focus on individual previous mistakes, I also think it is problematic to focus overly much on individual previous successes. Simply copying the strategies that worked for someone else won't lead to similar success, as hundreds of failed attempts at replicating the Apple iPad can attest to.