There is a parallel in college physics. Typically, most colleges have two tracks: "Calc-based" and "non-calc-based" physics. Everybody finds the non-calc-based course to be an utterly bewildering exercise in memorizing formulas. Even the calc based students are baffled by it. The calc based course is widely regarded as easier and more intuitive -- if you also take calc.

Stats is the same way. I was a math major, and my college had two stats tracks: "Math stats" and "stats for scientists." The first track was 2 semesters, and we had to prove everything. Of course we used calc. The second track was 1 semester, and was an utterly bewildering exercise in memorizing formulas.

I took "math stats," but was then asked to run the discussion section for "stats for scientists." There were things that were utterly intuitive to me, but that I couldn't satisfactorily explain to the students, such as the need for different formulas and methods for discrete and continuous distributions.

Freshman economics. The professor bent over backwards to make sense of the formulas related to things like the supply and demand curves, because he couldn't use derivatives. Also, it was 1982, and yes, the professor showed us the Laffer Curve.