One of the things that I have noticed is that most math "reform" is merely taking topics out of their logical order. I know many math tricks like that and that's how I often do it in my head for larger numbers, but you need a solid base with lots of practice to get to that point. It's like they took the brightest kids at a higher grade, figures out their tricks and shortcuts and tried to teach them to beginners, thinking that the tricks and shortcuts were the cause of their intelligence rather than the result.
It was similar to the "new math" in the 70s. Take some college level set theory and teach it to kids plus different number bases because of computers. The funny thing is that I don't remember them teaching base 60 or base 24 which even children dealt with regularly when telling time.