Exactly. Any character can choose to not use this ability or that ability but hinging whether or not the character's ability applies or works or even gets a chance to work is based off how well they communicate approach ti the gm is a different animal perhaps with very different threshold.Perhaps that is not the role she wants to play. Now if she did want to play this role, and lack of ability to articulate to the DM that desire, than yes it does become a player skill thing.
There certainly no rule that states that just because the druid had the better modify that she should be stating approaches that call for Survival checks more often than anybody else.
Edit: We do have player that asks "can I make a perception check?" at least once per session and the DM always responds "What are you looking for?" but he has yet to realize that stating what he is looking for first would save us all some time.
That certainly does indicate a lack of player skill in communicating with the DM to me, but could be easily remedied.
A wizard casting detect magic when encountering runes on a wall likely does not get asked "how are you casting it" with there being a chance the casting fails or the results suffer if they dont communicate it well enough.
But that same wizard with an arcana skill but not investigate skill might well be given an investigate check if that player did not describe adequately enough to get the GM to read this as arcana and not investigate.