My operating systems class devoted a whole lecture to how OSes deal with tape drives. Meanwhile, I don't think we covered networking. This was three years ago, and the course material was essentially unchanged from the 1970s.
When it comes to computers, the internet has been better than most undergraduate programs for a while now. And it's only getting better.
We did piles on networking, dcom, everything in the OSI stack actually. (I went to a canadian university, UNB).
While I agree undergrad uni isn't going to be on the cutting edge, I think that learning the basics, and the ideas behind why decisions are/were made is extremely valuable.
In short, you can't move forward without learning where you've been.
I've always thought computer science could be taught in the opposite order. Instead of starting with "Pascal/Java 101" and finishing with CPU design / architecture, what if you started at the hardware and worked up to high level languages? That's actually more of the course I followed, but only by chance.
How goes the saying... Computers are related to computer science in the same way telescopes are related to astronomy. It's not necessary to understand the inner mechanics of the machine to do the science.
Computer Science is closer to a branch of Math, it's relation to physical computers is a historical accident. I believe you are talking about a branch of Engineering. I followed more like this, but I had programming in the first semester - probably because we were supposed to be able to use the machines we were being trained to design... I'm not a computer scientist and I seldom think like one, but I am an engineer - and I think like one all the time.
It's really interesting to see the differences between Computer Science departments due to where they came from. The two big places I've seen them grow out of Electrical Engineering and Math, but they've also come out of things like some weird informatics or library science. I'm sure there are some other odd departments out there with interesting histories.
The problem with this is that not everyone will be able to handle Machine level things in the beginning. Even in the best universities students will be intimidated if there first programming class would be in assembly. They barely get by on lisp
The key is starting where people are interested. If they are interested in web, start with HTML/JS.
If they want to make blinky lights, start with low level hardware. Once they know how to do something and are still interested they will move on to other areas. Thats the crux of why the web will deliver better education because they will follow their own path.
Education is only meaningful and relevant if it enables a person to do what they want to do and could not before. Arguably, the issue is that the educational system is trending towards becoming more standardized where as society is trending towards becoming more individual and specialized.
The OSI stack? That's even less relevant than sequential access algorithms! The IETF crowd had won that battle decisively before the first OSI committees even met, much less after they shat their gibberingly baroque standards documents into the world.
When it comes to computers, the internet has been better than most undergraduate programs for a while now. And it's only getting better.