Yeah absolutely.
In d20, knowledge checks had much more structure. For example, you could NOT "Try Again" with a knowledge check, so there was at least some limit on pile-on checks built into the game. Similarly, how much you learned from a knowledge check was more codified, e.g.
"For every 5 points by which your check result exceeds the DC, you recall another piece of useful information."
The combination of those two things makes the move toward designing a unique fail-state for a knowledge check less pressing. I'm not saying it couldn't be done well and improve things in a d20 game or PF1e game, but that there's less urgency for it due to those two factors.
I still think there's plenty of room in d20 for such things, same with Perception checks and several others. When the only cost is a few seconds in-game, you may as well make the attempt. Four people rolling is about 18.5% (one in six) chances of a crit, and I'd imagine that even an 18 or 19 would still get
something in most cases for characters that have at least +0 to the roll. Bump it to five people rolling, and it's around 23%, just shy of a quarter of the time. Allow a 19 to count, and it's more than one-in-three for a four-person group (34.4%) and more than two in five for the five-person group (41%.) Even if
one person can't attempt again, the whole group can--and you might as well do so.
I mostly found the "for every 5 points" thing...rather weak tea, if I'm being honest. That usually just meant "you have to be at least this ~~tall to ride~~ skilled to know anything
actually useful," with a frequent side of "and no guarantees that the higher stuff adds anything."
Whereas with 5e, there is no guidance on pile-on (knowledge) checks, and there is no guidance on how much you learn from a check. In that context, I think there's more urgency in 5e for defining what failure means on a knowledge check – implementing those things goes further in 5e due to its lack of codification on the limits/powers of knowledge checks.
For instance, in my own 5e games, I learned to often say something like "yes, you can roll History here, but if you roll under 12, then that indicates some kind of bad blood between you and the subject you're rolling about."
Yeah, that's a fairly typical (if a bit out of order) form of "fail forward."
Nothing says you can’t run D&D like Ironsworn. Drop the notion of a pre-defined plot. Play to find out, instead.
I mean, you can (and, per DW rules,
should) do a bit of both. You can't "exploit your prep" if you don't have any prep to exploit--but having prep is necessarily having some amount of "myth," no matter how small. This is one of the reasons why I'm always confused by the rather strident claims regarding "no myth" gaming with PbtA. Yes, it
can be played that way, but it seems to me rather better when you...well, per the Principles,
Draw maps, leave blanks. There is a world, it has known contents, and it also has stuff waiting to be found.