Yeah I think that's a good point, and my issue with Penrose. His point sounds more profound but it is like dropping everything in complexity analysis (Big O). An approximation only goes so far, and sometimes the specifics matter. More importantly, when they matter, they usually matter A LOT. I think people underestimate how many things we approximate, and approximate with only first or second order terms. But last I checked, most things are not simple harmonic oscillators (springs)[0]

[0] See the Taylor Series expansion. This is an only physics joke