Skills move with job prospects and the fact is there isn't enough heavy machinery (manufacturing, farming, etc) to support the mass training of fine-machinists.

Skills move with job prospects and the fact is there isn't enough heavy machinery (manufacturing, farming, etc) to support the mass training of fine-machinists. Much of the work there is has to complete against replacements. The same is true in software development, electronics. And I think the same is true in software development. The languages and performance we have allow the majority of developers to focus on bigger problems. That wasn't the case 30 years ago. It's just following the money. Source availability and APIs do mean we have to hack less interop but that came because that's what the market demanded.