Chimichanga,
Did you think flying is the only profession that has stagnated in the last ten or twenty years.
I find it rather ironic that the quote you mentioned has his sons in Engineering colleges. The average salary for an experienced Engineer (from a graduate background) in 1999 was quoted at 35000. Ten years later alot of permanent staff technical positions are still only offering 30 to 40 K a year. Yes you can earn alot more contracting but the contracting life style is as disruptive to family life as flying was.
Also the Engineering sector is also under threat from the rise is Indian based design and analysis Engineering firms. At the moments the Indian companies are used as low cost option for doing repetitive draughting and number crunching/ data handling task. In time these will gain experience and start to out price the UK and US based companies for main stream work packages.
Ask any existing engineer if he or she would let his her sons or daughters go into Engineering and they will give the same answer as most Pilots would with regard to flying.
Note also this guy said he has spent 8 years in the military and 25 years in a mainstream airline, he has never worked in general industry to know what it is like to work in a corporate / office based environment.