The problem is that "experiential" teaching without any scientific explanation is inadequate and misleading. Teaching part is where you explain the students - why. It is perhaps the approach in art colleges where rigorous science doesn't matter.
The problem stems when Josef Albers made scientific claims which go unquestioned as the factual basis for his cool color experiments. That is wrong and that's exactly the kind of nitpicking we need to do. What you call 'Pedantic nitpicking' is necessary and essential to the scientific process.
It is rather misleading to start the book with "The book does not begin with optics and physiology of visual perception, nor with any presentation of the physics of light and wavelength…. What counts here—first and last—is not so-called knowledge of so-called facts, but vision—seeing." and then go on to explaining his experiments using false claims (which again are highlighted and detailed in Alan Lee's criticism).
Anyhow, even if I am considering Josef's Interaction of Color from an artistic standpoint, he simply points out the cool illusions without any follow up on how to use/implement his concepts. I find it as a casual book that sits on the coffee table, not on my work desk.