What you write Dave does make sense to me. Yet, IMHO there are disciplines where there is a large amount of knowledge available that has to be mastered before entering a discussion makes sense. The “short hand” as you call it, can be so massive, that it takes years before you can participate usefully and truely in a profession.

Using “knowledge by description”, being able to recognize problems and know the possible answers even without having encountered those problems yourself earlier, makes a lot of sense in many professions.

I tried to put this together some time ago here:
http://iwooweb.umcn.nl/fmw/toetsing/types_of_knowledge/index.html

Not using what generations of people have discovered, letting students do all the discoveries over again, is IMHO very inefficient. And, it will frustrate many students.
E.g. Problem Based Learning proves to be at its best equally effective as teaching based on techniques like Grounded Cognition and Scaffolding.
But at the same time, PBL proves to be less efficient, costing student and teacher more effort and time to have the student master the same stuff.