bizflyer,
Its a lot more popular than you think and there are a fair number of aviation professionals amongst the hobbyists.
Several companies out there have developed products aimed at the 'home-built' cockpit hobbyists, from fmc units, through to cockpit shells, to 'glass cockpit' software. Some of these companies also produce products for the commercial and military aviation training markets. Ironically quite a number of full flight sims are now powered by Linux running on PCs.
The cost of obtaining a real flightdeck section in the states is absolutely astronomic, you are talking 10's of thousands, for an empty shell. We are a bit more fortunate in the UK where it was, and maybe still is, to get a fairly decent flightdeck for under a grand. I paid £600 for a front end, approx 13ft, of a Bandit (EMB110), which included everything bar the instruments, a couple of years ago.
As Crazy Pilot states, there people out there who cannot, for whatever reason, obtain any sort of pilot's licence. One such project in the states, was created because the person's brother is disabled, yet has a love of aviation. These projects give a small insight into the world of commercial aviation.
Although I work for an airline, flying for a living does not appeal to me. I've seen first hand how unsettled life can be, getting up at odd hours of the day, flying the same routes day in, day out, spending a very serious amount of money for a licence, that may or may not get you a job.
I'd rather have a job with a salary that enables me to keep flying as a hobby. I'm also interested in the science of flight simulation, which is one of the reasons why I got into this hobby. I've been building these contraceptions since I was a teenager.
I do agree that 'dressing up' as a pilot is a little OTT, but each to their own, however the ATC network - VATSIM, does have real-world ATC people acting as controllers.