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Basically, I think it's an issue of personality and philosophy, not physics. If aircraft designers had based their machines on aerodynamic principles - or indeed if they had understood those principles well enough to even be able to design around them - we never would have seen combat aircraft that shed their wings in a dive or stubby low-aspect ailerons. As effective as some of these kites were, I have to believe that it was more by trial-and-error and sheer luck than science and theory. With the D.III, Albatros got lucky - and with their Dr.I they didn't.
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Well, let's dont underestimate the engineers of the time. Aeronautics was a experimental science, and much remained to be discovered, sure, but the Wright brothers knew what they were doing, and they had a good grasp of the basics, they used wind tunnels to test their designs, planes weren't designed on the back of a coaster, as Ernst Heinkel exaggerated once! Another German, Hugo Junkers, did indeed knew what he was doing and where he wanted to go. Though of course Junkers was a genius and 20 years ahead of his time.
I agree with the point of imitating success. Also, in wartime a lot of crazy ideas are explored in the off chance that some work, ideas wich would have been rejected in peacetime after thoughtful consideration. Case in point, the triplane madness.
The biggest constraint is the materials and technology available at the time. There are no biplane birds, but wing surface had to be maximized to compensate the low power of the engines, wich in turn brought the added baggage of struts and bracing wire. The Albatros fighters with its rounded lines are a recogniction of the importance of aerodynamics and an effort to improve the airflow, while on the other hand the SE5a sacrifices aerodynamics in favor of expediency, for easier manufacture, and compensates drag with raw power.
It may seem ilogical that the advantages of the monoplane configuration weren't realized, but taking into account planes had no brakes, and a higher landing speed were troublesome, it has a twisted logic to it. Maybe the authorities at the time were right in their distrust of monoplanes as structurally fragile, and that only a solidly braced pair of wings was robust enough. I think of the Fokker Eindekker, a wing that has to be warped to bank can't be safe
So though a large deal of trial-and-error was involved, I believe most of it was science, though imperfect, and that technology constraints played a large influence in design decisions.