what a refreshing reply - good point & I agree with you. For certain questions, it helps to think in this fashion, and to make non-obvious points that might be lost in details otherwise. I have nothing against formal systems in computing, programming language research, or other forms theoretical CS. In support of this, in mathematics, Grothendieck took an exceedingly abstract perspective, eventually leading to the solution of some outstanding conjectures of the time.

While I haven't articulated this particularly well in my original comment, what I despair is the singular obsession with Monoids. It is popular because it is easy for people to wrap their minds around, they convince themselves that they've learned deep math and Something Very Important(tm), and it has a cool sounding name.

It's like you've given someone a book about the origins of the French Revolution and because they've heard the word "french", keep repeating "but the Eiffel Tower though amirite?" and keep writing blog posts and articles about the Eiffel Tower and nothing else.

In some ways I suppose my criticism is unfair and has an elitist / snobby vibe to it. It is common for people to find some 'sexy' hooks to initially get attracted to an area, and one shouldn't judge too much newbies. After all no one is forcing me to hang out at forums :)