> If you actually had problems involving trees, you'd know that besides the usual data-structures we all know and love, problems involving trees and graphs rare

> If you actually had problems involving trees, you'd know that besides the usual data-structures we all know and love, problems involving trees and graphs rarely have prepackaged solutions... You seem to argue that having deep understandings of these types of issues makes you a better employee in the long term because eventually you will come across a hard problem that requires these skills. I would argue that an engineer who doesn't have a great grasp on the internals of fundamental CS data structures, but knows how to priotize time, will work on somebody else's mess or deal with corporate BS without complaining is more valuable both in the short and long term. These types of engineers are just simply better and more productive to work with.