Well I'm one of them Flog - swapped a desk for a cockpit a few years ago, took a 50% cut in salary, but dont regret it.
I am looking to stay in GA and hope to be driving decent twins around the countryside sooner rather than later. And I am pretty keen to be able to stay put, so not likely to be running off to the airlines.
And yes, I am able to use some of the skills I collected along the way driving a desk in my GA work - it has gotten me a pay increase to be able to do things like customer liaison, document preparation, records management etc.