The fact is that Derek apparently wants to stay ignorant and THAT is the problem.
I feel that the enthusiasm with which I enjoyed Vivaldi, Beethoven, Bach, at age 13 when I was first getting into classical music was not at all improved by understanding form, harmony or anything else from a theoretical perspective. I get the same feelings of joy from listening to that music now that I did then (not to mention I enjoy much more music than that now...I owe that to being a very open minded person). Since then I have read about traditional theory, and found it amusing to think about simply because "I can" but it has not really helped me to appreciate the music any better or make me like it more, or even help me compose it better. I have found it to be completely useless when applied to listening, playing and composing.
Since this is the case, I can't imagine how reading "Formalized Music" or any other treatise of modern music theory could possibly change my opinion of the music---and that is it doesn't seem to me to be created by a mind intuitively searching for beauty. Which is my explanation for why I do not enjoy the music. Anything that is introduced which is not a human mind reacting to the flow of musical ideas as they develop, whether composed or improvised, tends to pollute my ability to enjoy it, depending on the degree to which the composer abandons his own honest search for beauty. I'm sure Cage and Xenakis and others were nice guys and may have been kind of gutsy to put up with criticism...but their music completely, totally stinks. In my opinion.

At that point you might say, well, you, Derek, have an anachronistic view of the purpose of music. And to that I say, if you would like to make music, for yourself, synonymous with ambient noise, synonymous with silence, synonymous with the overtone series or anything else which previously had its own dictionary entry---go ahead and do it! I'll just start referring to music as: "The sort of sound created by humans, for humans, with an intent to satisfy and delight and inspire." Which takes a few more words.... I'd really like to just continue referring to it as music, personally, though.
