For me it's always been the Rubik's Cube factor. Try to outwit yourself. Try to solve it faster, in fewer turns. Spend an hour to try to remove a couple lines from a script. What have you accomplished when you're done? The toy is still a cube with colored stickers, and you don't make any more money. Your code might actually run slower, and is probably harder to read.

The achievement is solving the problem you picked. I want to see if I can be even more obtusely clever. On the other hand, your mind is being excercised just as though you were solving a practical problem. As a diversion, it certainly has more value than other monitor-based activities (TV watching, video games).

But as a previous poster said, you remember some of the tricks you pick up on the way, and they might turn out to be truly useful some day.

And are current methods of education stemming the tide of ignorance?

People usually make it through life with their ignorance intact, education or no.