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Can competitive analysis be made competitive?

Competitive Analysis provides a relatively new perspective for studying the performance of online algorithms and, more generally, performance in any algorithmic setting based on "incomplete knowledge." In an online setting, the competitive ratio measures the worst case (over-all request sequences) performance of an online algorithm relative to an optimal offline algorithm that has complete knowledge of the entire request sequence. As such, competitive analysis avoids assumptions about this input distribution and a rather elegant and challenging mathematical theory is being developed. But to what extent does such a theory have relevance to a "real" algorithmic design? For example, can it be used profitably in the context of data migration and replication problems, or in the context of financial investment strategies?