Dear Yserbius,
Apologies. Not really. I am mildly annoyed at your assumption of the facts. You don’t know what this specific story is about. [Almost nobody does.] And your not at all correct about the making of Lakewood Mesivtas. [Almost nobody cares.]
Whatever can help struggling kids, is water under the bridge. It is hard to say that this is from the schools without a clear pattern emerging. And the fact that Lakewood is now producing dozen of well behaved, blue collar teens, is enough to not immediately blame the gemara obsession and the like. Your theories can have a lot of truth to them, yet remain inapplicable.
As to “general lack of interest” it is not a seething indication to anything let alone indictment. Apathy is in abundance throughout the American Jewish scene. It varies community to community what they are apathetic about, but all in all the great unifying factor of today’s Judaism is lack of interest. It is remarkable that the post war generation worked tirelessly to build, their grandchildren are to disinterested to maintain.