Maybe i am a freak but to me Maths education isn't a race to be 'King of the castle' and acquire all of the methods but rather it is about acquiring a solid mental toolkit with which to solve diverse problems and to be able to understand the 'why' as much as the 'how' so that rules can be derived from first principles.
So far, the AoPS pre-algebra class has demonstrated that it fits that bill. Starting all the way back at the rules of Arithmetic and then working forwards... It is a bit slow but it is rigourously slow which is OK in my book.
