Agreed! And a skilled teacher would start by teaching Smoke on the Water with dyads (two-note chords) and then use that as a starting point for two discussions. First, one about barre chords and second, one about the same chords in their open format.

If the student is into classic rock, it's easy to expand this lesson into Cat Scratch Fever, Rock You Like a Hurricane, and Iron Man which are all similar to Smoke on the Water.

The bigger issue in guitar shops is that the least experienced player is the one salivating to hook up to the Marshall stack and play smoke on the water. Make them demo small combo amps instead and we are all good