Shooting from a cradle is obviously easier as the ball will be rolling slower, and thus wider margins for error in the timing required to make your shot.

Any other type of shot is going to have too many variables for someone to "calculate" when to flip, thus I believe those shots do rely mostly on feel.

I fear that much of this "feel" is innate, and only partially learnable. For example, on my machines at home, I have fair to good shot-making consistency. But on a machine new to me, my shot making will suffer greatly, even though I play and practice on other machines all the time. A world-class player will not have such a problem, and I am doubtful that it is because they learned that skill. Ball control, yes. Shot making, I am skepical.

It will be interesting to see if any of the world class players around here (Elwin, Bowen, Cayle, Donovon, Josh, etc.) will chime in, and if any of them will admit they have a "gift".