Teaching is a slow process of becoming everything you hate
I think one of the major problems with university teaching at the moment is the strong emphasis on student evaluations.I don't believe students are necessarily the best judges of learning outcomes. In face I have learned that students tend to be the most conservative entities at university. Try to make any change in a course and they will hammer you on the evaluations. The detailed instruction example is a perfect example of this. In my experience it is not so much that students find creative ways to misinterpret loose instructions, instead I had students literally complain they had to think for labs or homework. I find this attitude very weird, as if when they start working they will always be given the detailed step by step instructions.