[Silhuette]

I think perhaps the argument is starting from the wrong end. Solberg had an excellent career in rallycross and hillclimbs before he got the Ford factory contract. He was recognized as an "engineer driver" in that he could work closely with the engineers on development and setup of rally cars. This he brought with him into his private WRC team, arguably the most successful privateer team in WRC history. When he first got into the current FIA World RX championship (2013 i believe) he was fast but unreliable. After going to Pipo motors (and a rumored lively internal reorganization), he ran part of the 2014 and most of the 2015 seasons without a race engineer (i.e. filling that function himself) and has kept becoming faster each year.

Now, I propose two things that are going to happen if he is leading the design and setups himself:

1) The car becomes ever more customized for his personal preferences
2) The car becomes ever more difficult to drive for every other driver

So my argument is that the current fad for soft setups are based on the immense success Petter has had with his car - but he is driving a car designed exclusively for his personal preferences and driving style. The soft setup is only one of many aspects of his highly successful car concept. EKRX has four cars and two drivers - they are probably at least as technically advanced and powerful as Petter's single car, but they have to suit both drivers.

We see this in F1 all the time too - take any great driver and hire them as driver #2 in a team. Driver #1 gets first dibs on the car setups during design of next years car, and will very likely be faster.