I think it definitely is more appropriate in some domains than others. Sometimes you can replace 1000 words with a picture, 100 pictures with a video, and 10 videos with an interactive visualization. In that case, it might not actually be more work. I think the problem is that it's very different work, that professors aren't trained for. Again, it's not easy, maybe impossible. But if it could be done...

PS - I see you're at U as well. I work on a datavis team (iobio) in the genetics department (Steph says hi!). If you ever want to meet up I'd be interested in talking more about this.