I think the issue is treating Knuth's literate programming examples as received wisdom, or the pinnacle of the form, rather than as a pioneering effort by someo

I think the issue is treating Knuth's literate programming examples as received wisdom, or the pinnacle of the form, rather than as a pioneering effort by someone very talented, but done without the benefit of a developed culture around the practice. He makes mistakes we have memes now for (e.g. "explain why not how", useless comments for imports). I think if literate programming takes off, we'll see the form surpassing Knuth quickly