Ah it could be if you learn from it-- which it sounds like they did. They would have learned mire imagine than if they had never had to make those choices and live with the consequences.
"Better" can mean a bunch of different things, too. For example, if your business is headed for the rocks, mediocre advice that you get in time to enact it is much better than perfect advice that you get too late.
What advice isn't, and can never be, is ironclad rules that you can just accept without consideration and expect to provide value. The real value of almost all advice isn't the part where it's telling you what to do -- it's the part where it's providing you with a new way of thinking about the problem.
We can't accoubt for stupidity true. Almost every situation I encounter is a learning opportunity. Even a repetitive one where you learn : "Gee, I shouldn't do that again." : is a lesson.
