I hear what you're saying, and I basically agree. However, I still see some shops building new product with Jakarta Struts, hand coded javascript, and no continuous integration. They spend way too much time doing things that could be automated, which would allow them to spend more time on quality, or more features. (Say, if you want to use a java webstack, have you heard of spring & jquery, and maybe you should try hudson for your builds?) So, its also important to keep abreast of whats happening in the field, so long as you don't fetishize the newest/latest thing.