While I respect your opinion - it's easy to see how long it really does take new comers to get proficient in anything (a really long time) - I'm not sure exactl

While I respect your opinion - it's easy to see how long it really does take new comers to get proficient in anything (a really long time) - I'm not sure exactly how replaceable highly productive people are. I read this as basically "If you don't make it out of software and into management by 35, you're hosed." I don't see why system architects can't code fairly regularly - are you claiming that to be effective and valuable you need to spend all your time corralling people? They may not working tickets, but they are probably doing high quality prototype work.