Interestingly enough, I'm also an MIT '09 (hi) - and while yes, I loved the old curriculum and I wish they were still on it, you're making all these claims about the new curriculum that are simply not true. The "entire undergrad CS curriculum" has NOT changed to accommodate the shift to Python. 6.034 was the only one that changed at all.

6.006 does Python, but it's new and 6.046 had no practical edge to it at all. As a student who had a little bit of difficulty with the theoretical steps in 046, I can understand why they added the "test this and prove to yourself that this makes sense" exercises in Python.

As lame as it sounds, look into 6.00 - it's an "intro intro" programming class mostly required for Course 20 (Biological Engineering) students, but it's surprisingly robust as an introductory class - covering a lot of the topics you just listed, and well.