I didn't say that poking at something until it works is revising a model, I said that it's using a model (in, doubtless, a rather trivial sense). And, if I'm understanding your analogy right, surely the analogous claim would be that walking (as nearly as possible given that one remains on the surface of the earth) towards the pole star isn't reading a map (even an "implicit" one), not that it isn't cartography; and I don't think that's quite so obvious. (Also: it seems to me that "maps" have more in common than "models", and I think that's relevant.)