BEagle
I found the CPL theory a little bit more relevant and useful than you espouse. I studied 14 subjects including navigation, meteorology, aircraft general knowledge (technical) and flight planning to name but a few. Indeed, some aspects of ops/procedures and air law are a bit like learning for the sake of learning but the practical subjects were highly relevant to basic flying instruction.
Furthermore, the current FIC consists, in addition to the flying, of a pre-entry flight test and 125 hours of structured ground study, including the preparation and delivery of many 45 minute classroom lectures on anything from High Lift Devices to Weather fronts. The bull!!!! stops when you are standing in front of a white board being asked "WHY, Sir?"
As any teacher will know, it is important to have a reserve of knowledge in the bank in order to handle the more probing questions that get asked from time to time and the CPL level of knowledge is, in my opinion, just about right.