The problem, at least for me, is that there's no real incentive to get a "good grade" in those courses. I can't imagine one single employer actually caring that

The problem, at least for me, is that there's no real incentive to get a "good grade" in those courses. I can't imagine one single employer actually caring that someone has an actual coursera course completion letter. So when I do those time sensitive classes, if life gets a bit busy and I can't keep up, I'll just skip that week. And then of course I'm kind of screwed as I likely don't have time to do 2x the coursework the following week and it snowballs. If instead it was self-paced I could go ahead of pace at will and behind pace at will. If I fell behind pace there I can still complete it AOK. And perhaps this is just me, but for some reason once I fall behind in the time sensitive classes I rarely manage to complete it on my own time. There's something subconsciously working on me with the time schedules such that I throw my hands up and say screw it.