I’m a former English teacher. You don’t need to be an English teacher, however, to know THE ILIAD AND THE ODYSSEY ARE TWO DISTINCTLY SEPARATE STORIES.
This lying fuck did a wikipedia search of “the classics” and wants smart people points for name-dropping THE WRONG FUCKING NAME.
He hasn’t read either. At best he’s seen a bunch of bleached Hellenistic statue avatars on the internet and nodded along to their RETVRN prattling. 
Ever meet that annoying kid in grade school that said “I am very smart. I know that E Equals Em Cee Squared!” 
Fifty years later, one of those became 
I think younger students maybe should read the modernized versions (with some explanations for anything quirky that got lost), but the older ones should be trying to go through the original English. There’s just so much to absorb on even a first run through if Shakespeare’s plays (I’m always saddened when I try to reference stuff and almost none of my friends read or remember any Shakespeare), just the historical connections alone are really great/important. I’ve wanted to suggest watching HBOs Rome so many times to people but they never went through the Shakespeare plays and it’s a much harder sell
I would agree with you if I had the time, resources, and engaged students that weren’t exhausted from constant standardized testing. I considered it good enough if I could keep them engaged and maybe even interested.