There are (at least) two different things going on here that I think it's valuable to separate.

One is, as you say, the general category of systems whose growth rate expressed in delivered value "skyrockets" in some fashion (positive or negative) at an unexpected-given-our-current-model inflection point. I don't know if that's actually a useful reference class for analysis (that is, I don't know if an analysis of the causes of, say, runaway inflation will increase our understanding of the causes, say, a runaway greenhouse effect), any more than the class of systems with linear growth rates is, but I'll certainly agree that our ability to not be surprised by such systems when we encounter them is improved by encountering other such systems (that is, studying runaway inflation may teach me to not simply assume that the greenhouse effect is linear).

The other has to do with perceptual thresholds and just-noticable differences. I may experience a subjective "quantity to quality" transition just because a threshold is crossed that makes me pay attention, even if there's no significant inflection point in the growth curve of delivered value.