I don’t think university is very well equipped to produce either thinkers or technicians.

Right up until you get to your postdoc is seems like you’re mostly playing ‘guess the right answer’ with your professors.

It’s great for another dose of slightly more specialized basic knowledge, but it’s not going to prepare you for anything after that unless you stay in academia.

The point of assignments and such is to guide students through the thought processes useful to understanding material in depth. It's arguably true that some students can get by via guessing or whatever, but the disservice is mainly to themselves. Might as well pay someone to do the work for you.

Absolutely, I agree. Thing is, practicals should make students, well... practice a lot. So if a university produces great thinkers and average workers, I'd say that it achieved what it was set for. If a university produces great thinkers and dismal workers, then that university does not exist.

Perhaps more cynically the job of universities is not to train students but to rank them. If you are the top of the class at some ivy league school there is a likelihood of you being good a good paper shuffler at mid level management position