That's because it's really hard to explain physics to non-physicists without using mathematics. The clever part isn't classifying the orbitals, it's finding the Schrodinger equation in the first place.

We knew electrons had wavelike properties, but what equation did they obey? Even with hindsight it's still a difficult thing to derive - the relativistic answer is actually wrong, for example.

You reach the truism because the equations take years to learn - in engineering you can just take the result and run but in physics you have to be careful to understand what you're doing.

The Schrodinger equation for hydrogen isn't that difficult to solve (try it), but conveying that process in English is difficult.