I've let several of my own subs lapse as well. On the other hand, I don't think I see as bleak a landscape as you do. From my own perspective (systems geek) I think Linux, the rise of OSS and the general resurgence of *NIX has brought some excitement into my field.
(About to teach my very own UNIX sysadmin course next term.....oboyoboyoboy)
It was pretty grim there for a while, with everyone seemingly sinking into MS-endorsed mediocrity. I know we tend to blame MS for everything (and we're correctly surprisingly often) but I really do think that they really lowered the bar for my profession by getting people fo settle for stuff that wasn't very good run by other people who mostly didn't know what they were doing. And *this* was considered a selling point!
(No offense to you, Peter, you are an ubergeek who has truly paid his dues in this field and no doubt you are paid vastly less than your true worth.)