One could also argue that paying for a type, working for a low cost carrier and getting paid only when you fly, is starting at the bottom!
Times are changing, years ago you'd have said no way to removing the flight engineers and navigators from the cockpit but they're gone.
Flying is easier now with the technology. Perhaps those saying you need to get 10 years flying a saab 2000 before hitting a jet, perhaps aren't as natural to flying then others. Harsh, but perhaps also true?
Darkrooms comments almost sound like those coming from someone in a midlife crisis...we're all getting older mate, everyone seems younger now then what we were when we did the same things. I notice this especially in bars I hit when at Uni, everyone there looks so much younger then I was when I started going there, fact is, they aren't!