I have a significant amount of engineering experience, and this is one of the biggest red flags we see. You can teach people with inexperience...
Once again, your assumption is incorrect. One does to enjoy a technical career as long as I have without the ability to take in new data and remain current.
With respect to models, well, most models of complex processes are loaded with errors, as they are based on what we know, and what we do not know often outstrips what we know by several orders of magnitude. A decade ago, we were certain that Saaz-type lager strains were diploids with one set of S. cerevisiae chromosomes and one set of S. eubayanus (S. bayanus at the time) chromosomes. Now, we know that they are actually triploids with one set of S. cerevisiae chromosomes and two sets of S. eubayanus (S. bayanus at the time) chromosomes. In ten years, this knowledge will be replaced with knowledge that we could only dream of having today.
With that said, the only way to know for certain that one has the correct pitching rate with any given yeast strain is to experiment, collect data, and adjust one's pitching rate from that data. Assuming that a pitching rate calculator provides anything other than an arbitrary number is placing faith where it does not belong. A pitching rate calculator has absolutely no idea of how the yeast cells that are grown in a starter are going to behave once pitched into a batch of wort.
I have yeast culture from the old ACME Brewing Company. It is a bear to grow on solid media. We are talking about a major pain in the backside. If I based what this yeast culture would do based on that observation, I would seriously consider pitching a different strain. However, this strain performs beautifully when pitched into wort. That's what I am try to get at when I say that yeast calculators on the Internet are of little use when determining the proper pitch rate.