> you arguably shouldn't use the Suzuki method to teach music to your kids anyway since it tends to guide them to a local maximum by emphasizing ear training over reading

I am not a professional musician but this feels a bit reductionist to me, in that it assumes the goal of any musical endeavor is to faithfully reproduce the music that was written down hundreds of years ago.

Some of the most celebrated musicians could not read music -- indeed some were blind -- but I would challenge you to find any musician who created anything worthwhile without having a trained ear.

It seems backwards to me to focus on the skill of reading over listening for what is fundamentally an auditory art form.