I think that is my point and Val's, though, Jon.
That without that emphasis on applied deductive reasoning, it is just sort of a jumble of memorized formulae having to do with areas and distances of plane figures.
That isn't what geometry should be teaching.
I'm guessing that you first saw the subject some time after 1990? That seems to be when this shift first occurred.
WITH that part of things, geometry becomes a marvelous puzzle game-- rather like those logic puzzles that the LSAT contains. It's terrific fun. Well, okay-- it's hard. But hard in a really GOOD way for GT students.
This is a large part of the reason why I regard initiatives like "Common Core" with a certain amount of disdain to begin with. I feel that they are enormously misguided at their very foundations. Not everyone probably can pass a good Geometry course. Even among those who can, not everyone will find it an epiphany.
Neither is a reason to make it unavailable to those who can and should be engaging with that material. Unfortunately, that is precisely what happens with initiatives like this. Under the twin guises of "pragmatism" and "standardization" various courses are watered down until anyone everyone can master the material.
:sigh:
