A flat hierarchy of importance
The sentences exposed our underlying beliefs about the function and purpose of materials. It also further exposed how unprincipled our beliefs were and, similar to beliefs in teaching, our approach to creating materials did not necessarily match our stated beliefs.
I think this loose understanding of our own beliefs in materials may lead to problems later on when evaluating materials. We have baggage regarding the the effectiveness of published materials, but cannot clearly articulate which of our beliefs that the evaluated materials impinge upon.