Point of clarification: I don't want everyone to be an algorithm expert. I do want every programmer to have the basic background knowledge. If you are passingly familiar with binary trees and recursion, then you can figure out the answer from First Principles. If you are not familiar with the skills at that level, and don't have the basic skills you're supposed to get by studying such things, then perhaps one would characterize that as merely memorizing.

Actually, there are lots of skills and competencies that are valuable on engineering teams other than the ability to have all basic algorithms on call in your head at all times.

Where did I ever say such a preposterous thing? Please provide a quote.

And again, if you understand algorithms at a basic level from First Principles, then you don't have to memorize every algorithm like baseball card trivia. The important thing is having the background knowledge. If you don't think such knowledge is foundational background, then you probably don't know enough to know that. Hence: Dunning-Kruger.