Perhaps you're confused. Most people who refer to themselves as "web designers" aren't meant to be or and aren't trying to be computer scientists or engineers. Many of them have a graphics design education, or taken inspiration from that tradition. Some of the more technically-minded of them can do basic coding, but most of them stop at HTML and CSS. But they're better than I am at UI/UX, and visual design, because that's what they do. They're not meant to be computer scientists.
If you mean web-application developers, however, I'd urge you to take a look at some of the stuff that is being done on the front-end these days. (not to mention the fact that this blog post was written by a Javascript expert)
Yes, there are some people who have drifted into their jobs and are little more than cargo cultists, although some of the more talented and curious of them do make the upgrade to serious professionals. But by far, most of the people I've worked with recently on front-end jobs have had a rigorous computer science education, with an excellent knowledge of data structures, algorithms, software engineering, and computer architecture. The fact that they're working on the front-end, in Javascript, is incidental. In their spare time, and if they're lucky, on some in-house stuff, they might prefer working in Haskell, or maybe Clojure. But much like C in past decades, the web is ubiquitous, and any serious developer of this era must know how to work in it. We don't all have the privilege of getting paid to write Scheme.
But I do share your opinion that there are certain foundational concepts and knowledge that all professional programmers should have in common, including some of the papers referenced.