In my opinion, the theory is just as accessible as the practical side.
If you need the structure of a degree program, that's great. However, the typical programmer, who by the nature of the job needs to be a life-long learner, will tend to have what it takes to learn it on their own already. You are going to struggle professionally otherwise. And so that structure is not necessarily an asset.
But I do agree that learning the theory is valuable.
Pay close attention to what HN discusses on a regular basis. What proportion of it is software engineering? CS theory? Or any sort of deep technical topic, for that matter? Contrast that with the proportion of marketing/blog-spam about "ToDo in Ruby on Angular.js."
The problem with aggregators is the latter category always tends towards the top because it's easy and more people can relate to it. But it's not the sort of learning that makes you think, nor is it particularly insightful. It's just telling people what they want to hear: that this Ruby on Angular.js thing is what we all gotta jump on...because everyone else thinks so!
If you need the structure of a degree program, that's great. However, the typical programmer, who by the nature of the job needs to be a life-long learner, will tend to have what it takes to learn it on their own already. You are going to struggle professionally otherwise. And so that structure is not necessarily an asset.
But I do agree that learning the theory is valuable.