It's the same issue as with parents trying to emphasize quality time with their kids, rather than recognizing that quantity time is vastly superior on every front.

I mean that they are trying to make very special religious experiences a standardized part of religious ed, in the hopes that this will cause the kids to stay once they're adults. It doesn't work, both because very few people can take an experience or two from years ago, and turn it into a stable Catholic life without anything else, and because there's no way to standardize religious experiences.

The alternative, though, is to be doggedly devoted to the basics for the long haul, and that requires parents who will bother to take their kids to religious ed for a decade after there are no more parties to be thrown, and teachers who are dedicated to teaching the meat and potatoes of the faith, rather than trying to attract kids by dumping lots of sugar on top of a watered-down version.