So confident and so wrong. The microphysics of pinball are critical to the game, consider the live catch (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjALq96jpJQ). It's impossible to see with the naked eye, but the reason it works is because the flipper is so powerful that flipper bounces off the stop. That combined with a milimeter or so of give in the rubber allows a live catch. The timing is difficult, but not THAT difficult. And this is just one specific maneuver that relies on nuances of the physical properties of actual machines, and being able to read those tiny subtleties is what makes the difference between the best players.
Pinball simulation has come a long way, but it still feels very different from the real thing.
Obviously the ball response can be modeled as an impulse. However as you point out the difficultly is that the physics engine needs to calculate a correct result for the ball bouncing (i.e. it isn't simple to calculate the impulse).
Pinball simulation has come a long way, but it still feels very different from the real thing.