The reason why classic forms of development fail is because these issues (changes) were the exception instead of the rule in methodologies leading up to the 'agile' generation
I'm not surprised that 'waterfall' methodologies fail - they seem to have little to no feedback built in. And for what I remember from Control Theory course, feedback is essential to control a system we don't have full knowledge about. I do believe that it's a more general principle than just about differential equations and integration.
it works both ways - incorrectly designed feedback control loop (remember the classical example of overly sensitive steam engine control?) may make the system less stable