It’s tough to figure what order things should be presented in. I don’t know whether the answer is to learn vanilla before various layers of abstraction or vice versa, but I think presenting the information that there are other methods up front could help people realise that they at least have the option.
I’ve been thinking that the linear appearance of the curriculum map may be part of the problem, but I have mixed feeling about that as well!
The positive outcome of a linear curriculum is that a beginner can be told a pathway that literally puts one foot in front of the other for them until they get to a point where they are comfortable walking their own path.
On the other hand, we’re mostly so accustomed to ‘being taught in schools’ that many users think everything is presented as a rock solid, mandated set of requirements to get some meaningful qualification that will land then a job. That’s why we see these same questions pop up all the time: Am I allowed to self host instead of using Codepen? Am I allowed to use an array of quotes instead of an API? Etc…
Of course everyone is ‘allowed’ to do anything, but it’s easy to understand why people may feel there are extra expectations on them like that.
I like the Khan Academy branching model a little more, since it shows you connections between concepts and varied pathways to learn specific ideas.
However, both models are still ‘arborescent’ (tree-like) and this presents a (potential) fallacy about learning. Another way of learning is the ‘rhizomatic’ model, which suggests that when learning something complex (like web-dev, languages or history) there is not necessarily a next step as such. Rather, there are many possible adjacent steps, and all of them add value and may be ultimately necessary succeed in your goal of learning something.
Think of it like a Rouguelike dungeon crawler! You start with a dark map and each step sheds a little light, but you could be starting anywhere on that map and you are free to travel in any direction. Sometimes you’ll uncover an obstacle in the shadows and realise you need to explore another dark area first to overcome that obstacle.
That’s the trouble with a linear presentation of curriculum, because learning is more often rhizomatic, even though teaching is often inherently arborescent.
I’m not sure what the solution is, aside from having a killer community to support and help people learn at their own pace. Which FCC has 
Whoops - that got long!