Agree wholeheartedly. I've seen people suggest from time to time that TAOCP should be used strictly as a reference book (like a dictionary or a thesaurus) - I suspect people who try to use it that way are going to be disappointed when they look up, say, the Trie algorithm and find out that the text assumes that you're already proficient in MIX programming, and back-references a half-dozen formulas from previous volumes (sometimes from the exercises!)