I don't think the problem wasn't that it wasn't a "model" it's that it had lots of unexplained "plug-in" behavior. The heliocentric model had much less; it explained more using less despite being less accurate.
Nobody's arguing that the heliocentric model wasn't better for a variety of reasons... simply that getting superseded doesn't make the previous approach 'not science.' All models are wrong, some are useful, and all that.
And the heliocentric model still has plenty of unexplained parameters: the major and minor radii for each body. (Not to mention those pesky perturbations in mercury's orbit.)
