Could engineers be better mathematicians?

As part of their basic education, engineers are expected to be well brought up in mathematics. Their technical training includes many explanations that would be impossibly tedious without a mathematical formulation. Yet the number of engineers who subsequently express themselves fluently and understandably in this technological equivalent of Latin has always been small. Is it because engineers spend so much time communicating with innumerate colleagues that there remains too little opportunity to preserve their special skill?