I think part of what you are missing _is_ present in courses given live in classrooms. Unfortunately, the "funny" and background stories translate badly to a wr

I think part of what you are missing _is_ present in courses given live in classrooms. Unfortunately, the "funny" and background stories translate badly to a written word (they are more like non-fiction prose, and can thus be long and overshadow the rest of the material), and would make the course material hard to use for reference (eg going back to it to look something up). There is always an opportunity to improve any course, but I think the main improvement needed is in the materials being given online. Hopefully, universities will open up their live courses to the public, even if the public is excluded from grading and homework reviews.