I'm not referring to other aspects of the program, either.

> "you'll get better ... coaching from professors, peers, and alumni access than self-teaching."

Not all of the academic knowledge is in the textbook.

If I want to learn anything, I know the best way to learn is to get great coaching and a great curriculum. The unbundled (self-teaching) route is harder to navigate successfully, though, everyone thinks they're the exception!

I'm going to have to disagree with you on that one. If you want to learn anything, the best way by far is to learn by actually doing it. The perfect example is languages - you learn far faster and more thoroughly by immersing yourself in the language and using it every day than you do by learning in an academic setting, great coaching or not.

Many business topics are the same way - you will learn much more by actually applying the knowledge to real-world problems than by working through textbooks and case studies. When hiring people, I and my peers vastly prefer demonstrated hands-on experience to any equivalent amount of academic knowledge.