> I also abhor rote memorization. Not because I don't think it's valuable, I just hate extremely repetitive tasks.

Memorization leads to a different kind of knowledge, I think. You don't know the thing, you know the steps to reproduce.

It's like my grandmother who knows several songs by heart, but if you ask about the second line in the third verse she'll sing it from the start until she reaches the line in question. For a song this is sufficient, because it is analogous to the primary use cases.