Indeed historically, though not of direct relevance to general relativity, analogue models played a key role in the
development of electromagnetism - Maxwell’s derivation of his equations for the electromagnetic field was guided by a rather
complicated analogue model in terms of spinning vortices of aether. Of course, once you have the equations in hand you can
treat them in their own right and forget the model that guided you - which is exactly what happened in this particular
case.