>> Knowing random words from the rambam without gemara-context or psak is arguably not aisek, nor yedias hatorah
The way I (imperfectly) understand Rambam, he directly contradicts you and suggests reading him without sources. Luckily I can resolve this machlokes between CR and Rambam – maybe Rambam directed this just to balabosim like me.
As to calling “rationality” as “haskala”, I asked a deep Chabad scholar about some Rambam shita and Muslim philosophy and responded “Rambam was not afraid of admitting truth from any source”.
MosheKapoyer, admittedly, a lot of Talmidei Chachamim felt same way when Daf yomi was starting, so AviraDeArah is in a good company. If you ask me .. It is interesting, but takes time away from Torah learning :). At least with mussar, famous R Salanter’s answer was to spend available hour on Mussar and not Gemorah, as it will lead you to finding more time to learn Gemorah. I do not yet feel same effect from the Daf, maybe I need to finish it first …