Let's face it - memorizing some stuff never hurts. It becomes problematic when teaching/learning is based on memorization mainly.
Is there a real difference between questions "Give an example of S
N1 reaction" and "Give an example of Canizzaro reaction"? First one is more general, but in both cases there is a name given to some kind of mechanism. The ONLY difference is that Canizzaro was Italian, while nationality of S
N1 is unknown
Problem is, people are scared when they hear word "memorize", because in todays teaching students are conditioned: "memorization is bad, so we will not memorize anything". Bu*.*t. Think how many common names of chemicals you have memorized not even knowing when. Did it any harm to you?