It's hard to say. When you look at Cole's goals, they are so vast in terms of array of finishes that it might be fairer to say he didn't hone any one manner or area of the pitch to score in - he didn't come alive just here or there, like so many other strikers, rather, he made something out of very little very, very often and made situations that weren't live for others his personal playground, which is why he's revered for his movement and creating chances that literally weren't on for most other forwards. I feel that strikers who can make something out of nothing also earn the right to miss, more so than when the ball is put on a plate and is flubbed.
He might mirror Cavani in some ways in that Cavani had the insane, clinical, goalscoring run at Napoli (see Newcastle) before rounding out at bigger clubs with off the ball running that was on a different level to others were he became a bit of a meme for his misses despite it being his literal best in the world movement generating the scoring opportunity in the first place. Both players had a massive range of shot selections, instead of signature finishes and that might be seen as detrimental because they weren't particularly primed for that sniper-like finishing others had through repetition of the same actions game after game after game. Both proved at their stepping stone clubs that they could be just as clinical as others, but the scope of their game at the bigger clubs was decidedly more than that of other forwards so finishing in and of itself took a hit.
Cole said himself that he would work to be what his teams needed him to be and would follow the instruction of his manager and I think if SAF had wanted him to remain a lethal penalty box forward that he came to the club as, there'd never have been any talk about his profligacy in front of goal because it wouldn't have been a thing, but working on so much more than what he was as that pure, box-striker, affected his finishing because he was not running the same repetitious drills like he had become accustomed to at his former club.
You don't get off the ball running to that pedigree alongside supreme finishing in strikers very often, in fact, it's more moving into the all-time realm rather than the simply world class - if Cole had that insane movement to go with insane finishing, he'd be compared to the likes of Van Basten or Romario, not peers of the PL.