Artistic water simulation and scientific/engineering fluid simulation tend to be mutually exclusive in that they optimize for different objectives. Typically, a solution in one domain is ill-suited for the other. For instance, the "Stable Fluids" trick leads to desirable artistic properties (fluid behavior more closely matches stage direction = active energy input) at the expense of systematic inaccuracy (total energy is biased downward) that would be undesirable in an engineering context.

If this technique worked equally well in both domains it would go from "impressive" to "miracle". In the meantime, we can certainly applaud it for the things it does do well!