could you frame innovation problems as "design" problems? sure.

was the cotton gin framed as a "design" problem in the sense that it had some sort of epistemological lineage to the "design" discipline when it was invented? I suspect not.

the worst thing design ever did for itself was frame itself as "the" human-centered problem solving discpline. everyone is a human-centered problem-solver in the most general sense, in the same way that everything is a "design" problem in the most general sense.

Sure, there's a predictive aspect to it. What if your opponent zigs instead of zags, etc. But this is basically a matter of forecastable probabilities and can be added to your model. The optimal move still exists, no question about it.

Any problem of bodily motion through space has an optimal solution. In athletic situations, humans often can't think fast enough to find/utilize it, or aren't coordinated enough to move in the optimal way. And a biomechanically-perfect savant may still lose to an opponent vastly physically superior.