Is there anything like a general theory of satisficing that tells you when it's a good idea? It's reasonably easy to decide in individual cases provided you've got a lot of specific quantitative information, but suppose you don't have a lot of specific information and you only know qualitative facts about how something works within a system.

If not, should people just default to satisficing unless there are obvious reasons it will fall short of optimality, or should they do the opposite? I'm inclined to favor the former, but am interested to hear other people's perspectives.