home schooling: it works!!!!!!
You know, I thought a lot about this question throughout my life, and I'm not sure I disagree with you.
On the one hand, being outside the high school environment DID remove me from some of the stupider aspects of the high-school-specific social environment (cliques, class warfare, questions of educator integrity). Having grown up outside that environment, I basically made myself the man I am -- I did some volunteer work, I read a lot of books, and I was free to pursue most of my own interests without worrying about the opinions of others. I also actually kind of improved as a student -- from 5th grade onwards I had a very bad habit of doing, but never turning in, my homework. As the stakes got higher and I had a couple close calls, I actually learned to get over that somewhat and started applying myself a bit more.
But at the same time, being removed from the idiosyncracies of the social environment also meant, of course, that any socialization I was expected to engage in was all up to me. I had few friends when I was a kid, and I lost touch with many of them after I finished the eighth grade. I worked with children a fair deal during my volunteer work (children's museum, animal exhibition floor -- I handled various herps and invertebrates, I did some on-stage speaking during their bi-hourly animal presentations, I answered the kids' questions), and I worked with numerous adults, but I never really had that many relationships of any kind with people my own age. I'd be a liar if I said that didn't make things awkward for me.
If I were asked if I would home-school my own kids (lol you're going to die alone lol), quite honestly, I would probably say no. But at the same time, I can't totally dismiss my home-schooling experience as a wasted effort. I think I DID get some benefit out of it, even if there were some associated downsides.
(Just to clear facts up here: I DID go to normal public school from grades K-8. My parents are not any denomination of Christianity, Judaism, or anything of the sort. My experience was kind of a special case as home-schooling goes.)
At this point, I think I'll open the floor to questions about myself, since what is done here cannot be undone. I will refuse to give out my phone number or my current address, but pretty much anything else is fair game.