Rahuldandekar, I agree with you fully. Observational astronomy helps Theory which, in its turn, helps astronomy to understand what it observs and what should be observed before everything else.

I fully disagree with JoAnn&Bob. Astronomy and cosmology are mostly filled with enthusiasts working in their fields not just for money (although exceptions are possible). It is exactly astronomy and cosmology which are farthest removed from practical greed and self serving egotism. If I were an astronomer and lived in the 19th century I would have challenged Bob to a duel (not JoAnn of course).

Now to cosmological ideas. I agree with most people here that cosmology is still in its infancy. In the beginning of the 20th century Rutherford came up with his planetary model of the atom: nucleus in the center (like a star) and electrons around it (like planets). Since that time the model has of course been subjected to numerous revisions. But when it was introduced it struck the imagination of lots of people. And here is what wrote then a Russian poet named Briusov:

Who knows? Perhaps those small electrons
Are worlds with continents and life,
With wars, great leaders, suspect thrones,
And forty centuries of strife.

Of course with modern ideas about atoms and electrons, no cosmologist would subscribe to the idea that electrons are whole worlds. But who knows? Sometimes poets and philosophers see deeper than scientists. Where is the end to the succession of smallness? First atoms were elementary, then subatomic particles, then quarks, then what: strings? Then what? Humans know so little. But we are learning more and more, that's what is important.