This is not a solution for those don't want to think. But many who would gladly think if they cared will now find the transition to algebraic symbol manipulation lot less painful. Kids have their own set of "wants"... In most situations they have no clue how math is a path to satisfy such a want.
I once came across a thread on the scratch website where a student was saying he wanted to figure out how to use trig functions because the guys using trig functions wrote much better games. He(she) was complaining that all the explanations on the web made no sense to him(her). These kinds of tools together can ease the path for those who want to think, but never end up paying enough attention to math due to unnecessary hurdles that prevent exposure to deeper ideas. It is not a silver bullet, but definitely a nice tool in the hands of a teacher who wants to stimulate thinking and a student who wants to think.
I once came across a thread on the scratch website where a student was saying he wanted to figure out how to use trig functions because the guys using trig functions wrote much better games. He(she) was complaining that all the explanations on the web made no sense to him(her). These kinds of tools together can ease the path for those who want to think, but never end up paying enough attention to math due to unnecessary hurdles that prevent exposure to deeper ideas. It is not a silver bullet, but definitely a nice tool in the hands of a teacher who wants to stimulate thinking and a student who wants to think.