1. A method comprising: receiving, by at least one computer processor communicatively coupled to and configured to perform task assignment operations in a task assignment system, a first plurality of historical agent-task assignments; determining, by the at least one computer processor, a closeness of fit for each of the first plurality of historical agent-task assignments to a preferred task assignment strategy for validating the preferred task assignment strategy; determining, by the at least one computer processor, a threshold closeness of fit for each of the first plurality of historical agent-task assignments to the preferred task assignment strategy; determining, by the at least one computer processor, an expected performance of the task assignment system using the preferred task assignment strategy based on a subset of the first plurality of historical agent-task assignments that are within the threshold closeness of fit; outputting, by the at least one computer processor, the expected performance for use in pairing agents with tasks in the task assignment system based upon the preferred task assignment strategy; and establishing, by the at least one computer processor, in a switch of the task assignment system, a connection between an agent and a task based upon the expected performance to realize a first amount of performance gain for the task assignment system attributable to the preferred task assignment strategy, wherein actual performance of the task assignment system is optimized by using the validated preferred task assignment strategy based on the expected performance.