Why do you think that a correlation might occur between soldering skills and control theory
1. I see no inverse correlation, the way you stated it.
2. Don't mention "control theory", please specify, like:
A) writing down an exact copy of something in a book about control theory
B) making a painting about a guy explaining control theory
C) a guy that knows how to apply what he learnt in the lessons control theory, in a real experiment
D) ...
I choose C, you can choose the same, or another.
What I saw in my education as engineer, is that there was only a minority that was hands-on, and guess what? VERY often they were multi-hands-on. They repaired their bycicle, played with electronic kits, made something in wood, made an RC plane, and so on.
When we were in projects, those hands-on of course were better and faster in soldering, making a base plate, but also in applying control theory. They went straight forward over the known issues like V-max and V+max, PID factor limiting, simple filtering, installing a fast working demo, doing some tests on it and then, with that data, open the books and see how to refine.
In big contrast to the so-called theorists, still discussing about the usage of the right word, arguing about overcomplex models till none of them knew anymore what they were talking about. Every time again. Think they all ended up in sales and management. At least I saw their efforts afterward.