[ek]

It's possible that you're confusing programmers with computer scientists. Not all programmers are computer scientists, and vice-versa.

I understand that the title of the post is about books programmers recommend, but computer science extends far, far beyond programming and learning how to engineer solutions to real-world problems using algorithms.

The important parts to people doing research in algorithms are well-covered in CLRS, and that's part of why it's such an excellent book. It's full of rigorous proofs and a lot of theory, but that's because the point of the text is the design and analysis of algorithms themselves, rather than the application of them.

A university has an obligation to its undergraduate students majoring in computer science to teach them about computer science, and learning to think about designing algorithms, rather than merely learning about using them, is something that I would fully expect as an undergraduate majoring in computer science at any major university.

I suspect this is part of why more and more universities are offering degrees in Software Engineering, where the theoretical aspects of the field are not as important.