The same can be said for many - maybe even most topics in engineering higher education. 99% of the stuff you'd learn in an advanced controls course ain't runnin

The same can be said for many - maybe even most topics in engineering higher education. 99% of the stuff you'd learn in an advanced controls course ain't running anywhere, but it's a body of knowledge we want to maintain and grow because if it was applied everywhere, it could make everything better. Maybe the economics or the politics aren't there today, but you never know where it will come in handy. I 100% get why you're saying it: the fear is that with all of these contraptions in mind, we send a generation of engineers out who immediately reach for their performance bazooka when all they needed was a pocketknife. But SOMEbody is doing actual high quality engineering and needs to reach for this stuff. It's MIT: there's a chance those people are in the room.