I suppose. Although I doubt that (1) everyone is capable of achieving this and (2) whether one should necessarily strive for it.
I've gone without contact sheets for a few years because I figured the same thing you just said. "Oh, I can tell the good ones from the bad ones alright", and sure enough, after having seen (and printed) thousands and thousands of negatives, I can find my way through an inverted world fairly well. But still...in many cases, I overlook nuances that are too subtle in a negative to properly judge and reject images that turn out to work very well as prints, but don't look all that promising as negatives. Why? I really couldn't say, but I think the bleak realization is that there's a clear limit (at least in my case) to my ability to interpret a negative.
I've gone back to making 'contact sheets', but presently make them by scanning the film at a moderate resolution, file it away digitally, and inkjet print a 'contact' sheet which is filed away in the folder with the negative. I find this works very well for me, and I sort of regret my earlier hubris of "oh, I can tell by the negs alright". I acknowledge that (again, in my particular case) it was just an excuse for a lack of discipline.