I know all of these facts. Doesn't mean it is how it is for the right reasons, and even if it is, it does not imply that it is a good way to teach.
It is also possible that your own fitness-for-purpose coefficients are tuned differently than the majority of the field and they've made a sensible choice for their situation.
I'd wager on the latter.
Doesn't sound like a very creative teaching environment to me.
Not to mention that, depending on what you count as "AI research", the vast majority of it is pure garbage (come on, we all know this).