The media lab has very high standards for the computer science (or other field) knowledge of its students, and they produce great computer science research. Yes

The media lab has very high standards for the computer science (or other field) knowledge of its students, and they produce great computer science research. Yes they orient their (entirely graduate) program around creativity - but at its core they expect real research in fields like computer science or psychology. Your criticism of computer science, that they should eschew algorithms and theory in favour of applications, is entirely at odds with the media lab. I don't understand why you want academia to steal your thunder so to speak, and take on the job of creating applications.