This may sound silly as a comparison, but maybe you should go sit on a mountain with your compass and map and see if you CAN triangulate a position. I failed to do it, even though I knew exactly where I was, I could not draw crossed lines to show my position.
That's not at all silly, that's exactly what people should do. Practicing that is how you get proficient with using topo maps.
I've done this many times, and with a pretty high degree of accuracy too. I have stood on a ridge and oriented the map by reading the contour lines and comparing them with the shape of distant ridges. Then I take the angles to two points on those ridges and plot them on my map, where they intersect is where I am. No compass is required for this, but as W_D said, you have to be able to look at the map and clearly visualize the terrain it displays.
I suspect that if you don't have an intuitive understanding of a topo map the first time it's explained to you, you may never find them useful. I've had guitars explained to me lots of times, but in my hands they're useless unless I intend on annoying musicians (You'd think they'd like "Smoke on the Water", but it really does tend to annoy them very quickly. I never even make it to the lyrics).
People should LOOK where they are going and then LOOK for landmarks when they return
That is absolutely true, and I think we can all learn to do that.
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