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Yes indeed. With techniques available for accurately and cheaply measuring on-road downforce/lift, attached/separated airflow and panel pressures, why wouldn't you do some mock-ups and test?
It's funny, someone criticized my book for implying that you need big empty (Australian) roads for testing. But I have driven in the US, driven in the UK, and visited Europe, and nearly all the tests I describe you could do on almost any road. (Maybe not in winter with snow though.)
I think testing drag is much harder (although I am working on some techniques now - quicker than mpg and hopefully much more accurate than coast-down testing) but if the differences are so small that you can't measure them, then maybe they're inconsequential...
(And I really like your phrase - Cardboard Aided Design... I might use that!)
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