I agree, and I don't see the relevance of 1,000 old findings to an bad math curriculum. The beauty of math is that findings 1,000 years ago are still relevant today.
I think first steps in improving math education are teaching concept instead of calculation, and focus on understanding math principles instead of memorizing.
As a math/CS major, when I wanted to fully understand the basic concepts of pi, pythagorean theorem, I looked back at how they were originally discovered. It gave math a story behind it, and these concepts stuck with me because I understood them. I think we could improve people's understanding of math through telling the story of many of the concepts, rather than throwing concepts at students and hoping that they stick. Stephen Wolfram discusses the concept will on Concept vs. calculation: http://www.ted.com/talks/conrad_wolfram_teaching_kids_real_m...
Memorization is the road to failure in math, and many teachers push memorization rather than understanding.