More generally everyone who has learned even a little economics knows that when you open up trade, you improve production. That's the whole point of comparative advantage. However lurking in the math is that if 2 parties are engaged in trade, and the third is not, adding the third makes the total better off, but is not necessarily better for all parties.
Comparing the Ottomans and the Western Romans once again, both lost out on most of their profitable trade (as most of the trade was in the Eastern half of the Roman Empire and was no longer filling the Western tax coffers when the Empire split into two). Although I wouldn't take my conclusion as fault proof, but it would appear that countries can survive a string of bad leaders, but if trade that's taken for granted dries up and never returns, then the country is in bad shape if it cannot adapt.
In some ways, that's similar to how most of us try to do in our own ventures what drives progress. It's fairly easy to ignore the consequences involved in disrupting a market, but holding back progress generally has a negative outcome for humanity as a whole.* It may have caused the Middle East to become more isolated, but at the same time, humanity needs to find a way to avoid repeating itself (as we still see such things even today in any rural part of the world). Open communication and integration generally leads to a more free exchange of ideas and calms fears between different cultural groups and nationalities.
*I'm ignoring the ethical consequences here that came with finding North/South America and focusing on the trade routes to avoid going too far off the subject.