I'm curious to know what the reasoning behind your issue with the scouts. Please PM me.

Let me just say though, scouting isn't all about wild adventures and teaching little kids to become the next Survivorman or Bear Gryllis's (or is that Grylli?). Yes, camping, shooting, eating wild plants and tracking animals and all that fun stuff is just a small part of it, and probably what keeps the kids interested. But I don't think the main goal of scouting is to turn kids into little rugged mountain men. Don't forget that you probably have a huge group of people from all different backgrounds. For some kids, they've never even seen a tent, and have never spent a night outdoors, so throwing them out there in the snow and telling them to build a fire to survive the night might be a good learning experience, but not one they're going to want to repeat. If your kid is already too advanced for their activities, there's no reason why he can't be in the cub scouts AND go on alternative trips with your group.

If you look at what they focus on, and the merit badges required to move up in ranks, a lot of them have nothing in common with outdoor adventure. What it does is encourage kids to learn leadership and become a well rounded individual. Maybe Scouterman can provide more details on the goals. But learning how to manage my finances is just as important as learning hot to start a fire. Learning about how our government works can be just as useful as building a lean to shelter.

It's been a really long time and all my experience is with the Boy scouts, not the cub scouts. So maybe things have changed for the worse, I dunno. From your initial post, it sounded like your main issues were the scouts weren't doing enough things to keep you and your kid occupied. Other than a few notable political issues with the scouts, I can't think of anything that's really offensive in their values.

As far as advancement and achievements, that really depends on how the leaders choose to interpret the rules. There's nothing that says a scout has to advance, any "encouragement" is strictly up to the parents running it. Unfortunately, just like in school sports, some parents see it as a competition try and push the children for all the wrong reasons.