My take on this:

I don't think that events in the Mahabharat occurred to the fullest description given in B.R. Chopra's "Mahabharat" TV Series. There may be some historical significance to the folks that were portrayed in Vyaas' epic. However, just like Homer's Iliad, the stories in the Mahabharat are mostly social commentaries.

Mahabharat was passed on by oral tradition for thousands of years, and by the time Vyaas compiled it, a lot of symbolic gestures were hyperbolized by Vyaas. I think a perfect visual example of something like that is illustrated in the Tim Burton movie Big Fish. When you pass on a story from one person to another, details are hyperbolized based on what another person says, and the size of Ghatokacha becomes gigantic, when he was probably just an abnormally large person. Hyperbole is commonly found in literature.

While Mahabharat cannot be used as a historical document, it could be an asset to look at a cultural heritage that has been passed on for thousands of years. Just like the Bible should not be interpreted literally, the Mahabharat's tales should be considered with a little bit of grain of salt. When analyzing works of literature like this, the symbolism is more important than the facts.