Those criticisms are definitely common these days: lots of Sipser-style material is not very relevant or pedagogically compelling. I think push-down automata ar

Those criticisms are definitely common these days: lots of Sipser-style material is not very relevant or pedagogically compelling. I think push-down automata are a great example that many people would be happy to skip. On the other hand, that choice of topics is pretty idiosyncratic. There are a lot of big concepts, some pretty tangential, that are covered very briefly and could easily be skipped. So I don't think that exact course is a good outline for a new canon. But I agree with the premise for sure.