They were in a bad position to weather out the storm and they didn't. The early 90s were also a transition period for the market as a whole. They may have seen some sort of revival if they hung on just a bit longer to their Pacific division, but in order to profit from that, they would have needed the right equipment. IIRC, the mid 90s was boom time as the Asian economies were gathering steam, but you needed to have the 747-400 doing transpac flights in order to make a bit of money. Pan Am, operated the 747SP in that market, which may not have been a good fit. I agree that it would have been interesting, but not for very long, they just simply didn't have the right resources before they sold it off to United, which even after buying it out didn't really give the transpac market what it really needed, a robust American competitor.
