I feel exactly the same way. Nothing makes me happier than to hire a skilled tradesman and see the great results when the work done. His work is going to be much better than mine, assuming I could even do it. I don't really understand why any guy would be threatened by this. I think of it as working smarter, not harder.
That's pretty much my view - I haven't done any "serious" DIY for years once I found out that a really good tradesman will be much faster, much better quality and often not even that expensive.
Of course, the trick is finding the good tradesmen.
It is kind of depressing to consider,but your wages have been going up by 5%-8% a year and the tradesmen's wages have been flat to to down. I have a great, problem solving carpenter who charges $25 per hour - a whole day of his work for $200. There is no way I can compete with that. The trouble is he is pretty busy and hard to get a hold of. I tell him every time he is at my house he should raise his rates and mark-up the cost of the materials he buys
