You seem to think that someone whose passion is business (in the case of Atlas Shrugged mechanical engineering) should somehow feel a strong obligation to creat

You seem to think that someone whose passion is business (in the case of Atlas Shrugged mechanical engineering) should somehow feel a strong obligation to create on behalf of others. Nobody expects this of painters, poets, or writers because it is understood that their creative acts are done with love and personal importance. But creation is creation, whether it's an alloy or a painting or a poem. Rand's point was that it is the same driving force that moves humanity forward. The question is whether you think of it as something that should be coveted and respected (like, say, the musings of a Poet) or if you simply look at the distribution of wealth and declare that all that is unimportant, that the creative person should care more about helping others than about pursuing his/her work. The point of the book was not to suggest that people leave, but to show how the morality described in the book could stand alone as first principles of an improved society. The book is a novel of ideas and not (as you seem to have taken it) as a literal prescription for how individuals in society should act.