My opinion, which is shared by many other AI researchers, is that sensitivity to the exact phrasing of the prompt is a deficiency in current approaches to LLMs

My opinion, which is shared by many other AI researchers, is that sensitivity to the exact phrasing of the prompt is a deficiency in current approaches to LLMs and many are trying to fix that issue. If they succeed, then I think the need for prompt engineering will be mostly negated. Hard to know when that line of research will yield success, though.