I'm not sure I get you. At MIT it is encouraged for the most prestigious professors to teach even freshman level classes. In fact, Sussman and Ableson themselves taught 6.001 (SICP) when I took it as a first semester freshman. I was taught by all sorts of famous people all throughout my undergrad MIT education. The big names especially chose to do so when they were developing a new approach to teaching the material.
Ahh, ok. I'm not sure you get the more average university experience then. I spent 5 years at a fairly large research state university without ever having a class from the department head, despite the fact that his main focus was also AI. I've even had a few lower-level undergrad classes taught by under-qualified first year PhD students.
