Isn’t this literally the first class you take? Like there are. 3.5 years left to learn all the other shit? This is a class for people with little to no programming experience. And it will include many people who will not be programmers (shocking I know).
“Give people tools to do shit” does not preclude “learning all the details”. And it’s not the last class people take!
It also expected that you have considerable earlier knowledge, just not on programming itself (For example, at least some exposure to calculus is expected, as that's what some early examples use).
The early lessons of SICP are more like teaching what's 2+2 in my opinion (substition model of function application, for example).
In terms of practicality of the content, honestly I'd say SICP was at least as bad as most intro lectures I've seen, and honestly should stay but be combined with something like companion labs with "battery included" builds to play with things.
In the OP video, Sussman mentions that SICP was one (the first) of four core courses in EECS that introduced essential concepts in programming, circuits, signals and systems, and computer architecture. I think all four completed by the end of year two and were prerequisite for all junior/senior EECS courses thereafter.
It's hard to imagine the EECS program does not still require this material to earn a BS in CS or EE, but requiring four prerequisite courses probably interfered with non-EECS students who wanted to take junior/senior level EECS courses but did not want to have to run the "gauntlet of four" before doing so.
“Give people tools to do shit” does not preclude “learning all the details”. And it’s not the last class people take!