you all assume that everyone has to be a talmid chacham.
you all assume that everyone has to learn the same things and the same amount or their leaning is worthless and superficial.
you all assume that your derech halimud and the derech halimud of your respective yeshivos is the only correct derech halimud and everything else is just a bunch of sheep playing talmid chacham.
longarekel: what is wrong with you? lets break down your criticism of daf yomi.
so some people have mentioned that if not for daf yomi many people wouldnt learn at all. if thats the case then daf yomi is a wonderful thing–because of course you would agree that limud hatorah is a wonderful thing–but no. youre completely discounting the benefits of daf yomi in favor of some lofty ideal where you live in a world where everyone knows kal hatorah kula. good luck with that by the way.
so more people are learning, but according to you theyre learning the wrong thing. assuming theyre actually interested in knowing halacha they will find time in their day to learn some. assuming they dont care that much but know that they have to be kovea ittim, then mitoch shelo lishma ba lishma, and your ranting is useless because they would never have learned halacha anyway.
some other genius mentioned that every litvishe rosh yeshiva is against daf yomi…that person is wrong. patently wrong. i spent some time around rebbeim who were a bit critical of daf yomi, but it wasnt the institution that they disliked, it was the fact that these people dont learn more. FOR WHATEVER REASON. the ideal for every rebbi and rosh yeshiva is to produce talmidim who never leave a beis medrash, and while that ideal is nice, it is completely unattainable and they know it. so they spend as much time as possible trying to convince as many students as they can, and one way of doing it is by saying “do you wanna be a daf yomi sheep, or a true talmid chacham?”
the choice is loaded of course because if you asked them outside of their roles as rebbeim, they would tell you that daf yomi l’maaseh is a wonderful thing–the fact that the person left the koslei beis hamedrash is what isnt wonderful. the fact that he needs daf yomi isnt wonderful. not the fact that daf yomi exists.
so knowing the entire shulchan aruch is a prerequisite for learning gemara? im sorry…i may have missed that in Intro to Judaism 101. last i looked, the mishna berura and shulchan aruch often make references to topics in the gemara and expect you to have some knowledge of those references. how would one have knowledge of those references if they cany learn gemara because they must learn halacha instead. bit of a catch 22 wouldnt you say?
so what you must want is a balance of the two, which i already addressed above.