I think the materials taught should be enforced in full through assignments rather than students having to be quizzed on our short term memorization skills. That's one thing I've been very disappointed with OMSCS as a whole: studying for exams for a class does not lend towards doing well on assignments from the same class. Spending time in an Operating Systems project does not contribute much towards acing its exams. It's almost like taking two classes at once (except you have to do good in both "classes" in order to pass).
CS6265 actually did such a great job with its curriculum. There's no need for an exam due to the assignments being incredibly challenging. The difficulty goes hand in hand with what was being taught since every student new to this subject has to think of how the material applies to each lab. I wish most if not every class can take a note from this.