The ironic thing is, I swear that this must have been how math (at least more advanced math) was taught a century ago. Or at least, nowadays I've taken to relying on textbooks from the early-to-mid 20th century to learn new math. Maybe it's survivor bias and the only textbooks from back then that anyone remembers are the good ones.

I hate new textbooks because they're so built around instant gratification. They just come out and tell you how to solve the problem without building the solution up in any way. Maybe afterward they take a swipe at telling you how it works, but that's just completely the wrong way around IMO. It robs me of the chance to mull things over, try to anticipate how this will all come together in the end, and generally have my own "aha" moments along the way.

But, getting back to what you say, I think that it also engenders this tendency to reduce math to symbol manipulation. Because if they give you the formula in the first paragraph, then all subsequent explanation is going to end up being anchored to that formula. And IMO that's just completely wrong. Mathematical notation is at its best when it's a formalizing tool and mnemonic device for cementing concepts you already mostly understand. It's at its worst when it's being used as the primary communication channel.

(It's also an essential tool for actually performing any kind of symbolic reasoning such as algebraic manipulation, of course, but I'm mainly thinking about pedagogical uses here.)