i've seen a number of math-but-sort-of-CS textbooks putting the dependency graph for chapters in the introduction, so you know what you can get away with skipping and what must be done first.

i agree about geometric intuition, as long as there's a wall of separation between the intuition+motivation and the main results.

it frustrates me when an important result is only proved in the context of a motivating example where i don't have the background. usually this is when a math book dips into physics or engineering for whatever reason.