It would be great if programmers got more responsibility with increased skill and experience. But that is often not the case. There are very few jobs for highly skilled and experienced programmers and hackers.

Agreed, as I said - depends on what you write. It's a shame that so much of the industry actually devalues the very thing that got us into this in the first place (presumably not just money, but some love of engineering quality software), degrading the job to be nothing more than "hacking" together something, just to deliver.

It's not just delivering that is important (it is off course), but what is delivered, and if a company's non-techs don't realize and appreciate this, it's a slippery road.