What the OP is rallying against aren't the typical 'managers' in big companies. The people who complain here (and on their blogs) about how difficult it is are small companies, at the cutting edge of technology, usually startups run by twenty or thirty somethings. The same people who, a couple of years ago, ranted and raved about how programmers aren't cogs etc. just like in your post. Now these people need to make a profit and all of a sudden they find out - "hey, it's not as easy as I thought". So then their strategy switches to 'let's pay people peanuts to work on "interesting problems" so that they can "do the things they love" - with the next step being incessant whining about how they attract only unqualified applicants.