gnwiii,
yes you are totally right. There is better software out there for reproducible scientific work. But in most cases there is prior knowledge needed from the students in a class to be able to combine their knowledge in GIS tools, scripting and remote sensing data (and processing) knowledge.
The problem for my classes is, that I can not teach every knowledge just in one single class. And I am teaching first to third term students with little to mostly no knowledge about scripting or other spacial operating software. The topic of my classes is remote sensing in theoretical and practical means. I therefore have to concentrate on the remote sensing part and I would never ever have time to teach R or GIS in the same class. This is why I am using SNAP mostly in combination with Excel. The students do not need any prior knowledge.
SNAP is an awesome software for beginners classes, as everything basic can be done from the GUI. But it is a pain, if little display problems appear. Therefore, I hope my little comments help to improve SNAP further.
Best regards,
Geo