I think that the goal (going beyond rote learning) is a good one. If there is a problem with the execution, I think it relates to the fact that teaching people how to work logic problems can be much more difficult than teaching people how to do arithmetic. My experience has been that many students and parents who can do the arithmetic problems for a given lesson find the accompanying reasoning problems to be difficult. This seems to me to relate to the simple fact that logic problems, word problems, analogies, and the like are difficult for many people. I suspect that this sort of work ought not to be conflated with the teaching of arithmetic or even algebra. It seems to me to rely on an entirely different set of skills, e.g. the ability to digest complex passages in natural language.
