Physics is actually still pretty hard without the maths: if you imagine you have a new phenomena (e.g. a whole bunch of seemingly bizarre "elementary" particles a la hadrons before quarks) characterising them in a way that they can be modelled let alone modelling them is very hard.
I agree, but I think we're talking about slightly different things. I was more referring to the judicious division and encapsulation of concepts that we already understand very well.
More science education than science the philosophical pursuit. Which was more the concern of the folks I was tutoring.
