Have to learn this as part of a mechatronics class, why the fuck is this theory such a train wreck?

In terms of the theory itself:
>vast array of different methods and calculations to find the most optimal control system
>all pretty much useless unless it's dire it needs to not fuck up
>99% of application it's just PID tuning via guessing numbers until something works decent

As for the education of the theory:
>Lecturers are shit, literally will just copy and paste from books but with less effort/information, or make it ten times as convoluted as possible
>Dorf is considered one of the best books to learn it, man cannot teach to save his life (missing information, massive jumps that feel like a puzzle than a textbook, I honestly felt like I was in a lucid dream reading his book because it's all so vaguely illogical due to the jumps it makes)
>Ogata is MVP, man explains shit easy and simple, but sometimes writes like he wrote the script to "the missile knows where it is" video.

Of course it's badly taught because nobody uses it beyond PID tuning, so passing the exam is all that matters, but jesus christ it digs its own grave, no wonder theory is an academic rabbit hole.

Also I'm surprised Simulink is the only mentioned tool for this stuff, base-MATLAB has alternatives (worst case even Python is good enough), but nobody seems to have made Simulink alternatives