Exactly. The "fail fast" notion is anathemic to most worthwhile pursuits, from school to skill acquisition to sports... I'm not sure why it's suddenly considered a virtue in the startup world.

It depends on what extreme you take it to. For the classic sports example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mMioJ5szc

Fail Fast can also be seen as: Perform, get feedback, perform slightly better, get more feedback, iterate until perfect.

But we already have that. It's called practicing.