well, no. It's just that what exactly does one expect to see at a research lab? I don't think any scientific research would appear exciting if you had a glimpse of it on a tour. The exciting things happen at different timescales! I mean, this is literally one of the major problems grad students face. It's a big change from school before, where you get a per-assignment or at least semesterly signal about whether you're doing the "right" thing. Whereas an entire grad student career (or more tragically, an entire academic career) could lead to nothing exciting, just a bunch of "that didn't work".

Which is still progress for the research community, but not something that's exciting.

I won't say there's absolutely nothing gimmicky about CSAIL. Maybe the parent was more sophisticated than the tour's target demographic. But I also question how much depth someone's perspective could have if it's based on a tour they got in high school.