Yes, you're absolutely right. Tolstoy could "see" ...but not all the way through. For example, he conveys ---and especially so toward the end of the book, that we countenance Pierre's self-satisfaction and bourgeois "normality" because he is a good-hearted and generous man. But his being able to display those qualities has a great deal to do with the fact that he has fabulous wealth (unearned/undeserved) with which to "demonstrate" his goodness. His final shopping trip is a triumph of a "normality" that is simply not available to 99% of the people of Russia, and Tolstoy knows that. And he presents it in such a way to remind you that he knows that.
(As for Natasha: she is unconscious life force from the beginning to the end of the book. The reason why men are so much more enchanted with her in the beginning is because unconscious/fertile/lively life force is much more attractive in the "come and take me" stage, than it is in the "baby comes first" stage.)
What is truly magnificent about Tolstoy is the total absence of bullshit--especially given the scope of his writing. He doesn't pretend to see what he can't really see...and when he tries...it's more like mythmaking (as with the worker-hero/peasant life stuff he does) both in W&P and Anna.
In his last, brilliant/flawed book "The Resurrection," he tries to take it one step further, but he can't quite manage it. It's a short book. It's the kind of failure that convinces you not so much that the author has failed but that any author can only fail...because the next "creative" step is revolution--not literature.
Joanna