It's reasonable for you to do what you do.

In academia (such as economics) sometimes technique is valued over problem over result. It causes some disconnection between the "theorists" and the "empiricists."

It could be that they misapplied the theory or the underlining data and process were not that forecastable. For example, you can't make a good forecast for each outcome of the flipping of a fair coin no matter how sophisticated a technique is. (Many people try too hard to fit the reality into their "models.")