[kpsychwave]

You raise good points.

I would agree that Plato/Aristotle are good foundations for understanding European intellectual history but a lot of chronological study is required to see their influence / relevance today. Here's a cool dependency graph that shows the centrality of Ancient thought: http://www.designandanalytics.com/philosophers-gephi/

However, I worry that a student without some grasp of valid inference would be at the mercy of aesthetic attraction/repulsion factors for deciding what to accept as valid.

I specifically recommended "Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking" because I found it to be the most practical and skill-based class in a Philosophy curriculum. While they usually cover some proofs, most of the content has to do with identifying arguments. In addition, having knowledge of formal/informal fallacies helps in everyday inference. It is also relatively free of heavy "Greco-roman" western bias, which may appeal to a wider audience.