Your understanding of the terminology sounds a lot different than mine. I always interpreted "hard" and "soft" to simply be references to "hard science" and "soft science."
In other words, I thought "hard sci-fi" means fiction that deals mostly with fictional facts in fields like physics, astronomy, geology, and biology, while "soft sci-fi" means fiction that deals mostly with fictional facts in fields like psychology, economics, and political science.
In other words, I thought "hard sci-fi" means fiction that deals mostly with fictional facts in fields like physics, astronomy, geology, and biology, while "soft sci-fi" means fiction that deals mostly with fictional facts in fields like psychology, economics, and political science.