It's actually a really good idea. The curriculum's now separated into a class where they teach you how to code and then a bunch of project lab options where you learn how to code something useful in specific. So if you want to be a web app developer, take 6.005, and then, I guess, 6.171 instead of the hell that was 6.170. GizmoBall and RSS Readers are pretty dumb projects, too...
The real loss is 6.001. :(