Does Iteration Improve Design

Last Fall I shared images and video of an LED animated garden sculpture. I was never very happy with the result formally - it was more of an engineering and programming exercise than an interesting sculpture. It just seemed, sort of static... vapid, no mystery or unexpectedness to it.

So I went back to the studio and found that - by twisting the arc'd elements on the armature ~45 degrees (as shown on the pic) and without changing the LED programming at all - IMHO the result was a more dynamic composition. I'm a tinkerer, sort of a bricoleur. I seldom start with a well formed concept then just straight execute it. Rather, it takes a few tries to arrive at something satisfactory. All this said, it's a matter of personal opinion whether the modified version is better than the first. I wonder in today's digital design environment if similar rapid and multiple iteration occurs. In theory, using Sketchup, Rhino, Revit, etc. you could iterate quickly at the conceptual level. Does this happen?