Lew, I think that everyone in this thread has made some excellent points including yourself. I would say that you may be trying to paint with too broad of a brush and you are perhaps missing the value in a strong foundation. I think that at the beginning of any endeavor, artistic, sports, hobbies, career you have to learn the ropes, you have to put your time in and pay your dues, learn the basics and make them your foundation to draw on. In photography that is ingraining technical basics so they are automatic and you no longer have to give them as much time and energy in your thought process but you need to understand them to be able to formulate your creative thought process around them. Learning how your gear works whether you approach it in a technical manner or a more intuitive manner is part of your apprenticeship.
At the risk of sounding narcissistic I will use myself as an example. I was brand spanking new to photography one year ago when I dove in and bought my 60D, green as green can be. I knew zip, zero, zilch, nada. A couple days after getting my camera I found TPF and I started to learn.
I took pictures of everything around me. Mundane stuff, common birds, squirrels, flowers, sunsets, I cut my teeth on all of it. I spun dials the wrong way, I spun dials to their extremes, I made many mistakes some of them happy, I learned the technical side by doing it over and over and over. Along the way when I made mistakes I saw things on the screen that I wanted to recreate in an intentional way but I didn't "see" the artistic potential before I saw the shot on my computer screen, my brain was too occupied still working on the technical side of things, I was still paying my dues.
After a while of capturing things "right" and about a bazillion shots of cute squirrels, flowers, pets, rocks, pretty scenes I started to get bored because my brain was no longer being challenged by the technical aspects, they were becoming ingrained, I could start to instinctively spin the dials to an acceptable exposure and tweak it to fire off a "technically sound" shot. Then is when I was ready to start looking at things as you described in your OP, I paid my dues, I learned enough about my tools to free up the brain power to focus more on the artistic side of things.
I think what you are saying is absolutely correct but there needs to be front end learning of your tools prior to where you are starting in your OP. You can't create with intent if you don't know how your tools work, the creative process will be stymied by lack of technical knowledge. Your ideal student has paid their dues and has at least a general understanding of what their camera outputs and how to control it.