I find repeated use and connection to other (perhaps familiar) concepts far more valuable for memory than rote memorization. Flash cards would help me pass a test in school, but I wasn’t going to remember a year later when I needed that prerequisite knowledge for the next class.
I believe the more accurate thing to say is that many of us got so fed up with rote memorization that we devalued all types of memorization. There are good and bad methods of memorization, experiential memorization is definitely better than rote if you can create the circumstances for it. But some of us just wrote off memorization being valuable period.
