It just means that the new model's concepts may be more productive and adaptable for further development. But there's always another side to every coin. Such was the case with the concept of the luminiferous ether. These mistakes are swept under the rug of history when they are replaced. Past experience has shown that mathematical models of nature have tremendous advantages over the earlier, more appealing, models which used analogies with familiar everyday phenomena of our direct sensory experience.
Mathematical models are less burdened with emotional baggage, being pure and abstract.
Also, mathematics is apparently infinitely adaptable and flexible. If a some natural phenomena doesn't yield to known mathematics, we can invent new forms of mathematics to deal with it. The history of science has been a process of finding successful descriptive models of nature. First we found the easy ones. As science progressed, scientists were forced to tackle the more subtle and difficult problems.