Making algebra seem more relevant to teenagers helps them learn the concepts more easily. Is this news?

Yes, apparently it's hard to get American parents to see the value in math, even in 2014.

not news, but hard to break away from "the way it's been taught"

But why is it taught that way? I remember back in the day reading an article that theorized people who are really really really good at maths -- like math professors -- are unusually abstract thinkers, and they set the curricula to be as abstract as possible because they don't really grasp that most people are NOT abstract thinkers.

I think that's it. That's a huge disconnect.