If we accumulate a backlog of designs, they simply will not work at first. Steady and magnificent technological progress has been the hallmark of the last half century. The learning curve for computer chips shows that the price of a given chip falls in relation to the total number of units shipped since the product first came out. The ability of an industry to learn how to make a product depends very strongly on how many units have been made. Hundreds of little corrections and small tricks help lower the price of a unit in the next production run.
Sheer experience is the most important factor.
Many products from VCRs to photocopiers exhibit the same kind of learning curve and attest to the power of feedback and gradually modifying the design. Molecular Speculations on Global Abundance pp. In both cases, he thought, you have an agent playing against its environment, trying to win enough of what it needed to keep going. In evolution that payoff is literally survival, and a chance for the agent to pass its genes on to the next generation. In learning, the payoff is a reward of some kind, such as food, a pleasant sensation, or emotional fulfillment.