I take the position that music theory is like the vocabulary of the language we call music. You can't express profound feelings well, unless you have the 'words' to express them with.

It is possible to stumble into effective progressions, (my lack of knowledge condemns me to this approach), but I suspect this is the musical equivalent of puting 1000 monkeys in a room full of typwriters, and waiting for them to write "War And Peace".