Bushy unfortunately the ideal that you speak of just won't occur again due the economics of GA. 20 years ago everything including housing, fuel etc was cheaper. GA aircraft were new(ish), and the boss could pay you enough money to be comfortable, the cost of living was reasonable and he made some money too. The cost of training was cheaper and wind back the clock to the 60's and flying training was basically free!
Today if you went and bought a license with the plan of being a GA driver forever you just will not get paid enough money to justify it. Even if we wipe out all the airline wannabes who you accuse of killing salaries you won't get much more than $45 000 a year for a C208, PA31 type aircraft. This is because the aircraft can't generate enough money to justify more. A private corporate job may get you a bit more but then that really relies on how much of a tax write off the boss needs. As said above unless you have another income stream bugsmasher GA won't pay the bills in this country.
I have heard this "I just want to be a GA pilot" line a few times in my career and ALL of those guys are not in GA anymore. Some quit because they could see financially they wouldn't be going anywhere and were never able to buy a house, others quit because their nostalgic view of what GA was didn't represent reality and it was all to hard for them, others wound up in airlines, regional and major funnily enough.