I thought I mentioned it in my post, but I HAVE been out for a few years. Out in 06. These days, I work at a data center for an insurance company, and the technical expertise in my building I work in now could run circles around any of the NOSC's that I was involved with, and from what I've heard of the AFNOSC, I highly doubt it's much better.
As far as warrior skills and ethos, that's exactly what I WASN'T knocking. Those mentalities are why it's a bad idea, IMHO, to go with contractors. What isn't relevant, to IT, is the PT, the promotion game, the assignment roulette wheel, and a complete failure to move people forward by merit (not up in rank, but to important jobs). Now, I certainly learned those games when I was in. I regularly bested others in my dorm when we had room inspections. My uniform was squared away. What galled me wasn't that I was not successful. I was. But I would have been just as successful if I couldn't tell a cat 5 cable from a phone cord, or If I spent 4 hours searching the datacenter looking for the hotmail server to reboot (both these were REAL things done by NCO's in my time).
This would be similar to a Marine who could polish a floor like nobodies business, but couldn't figure out which end of the rifle was the "unfriendly end", and couldn't find their own ass with a map. But because they pass the inspections and play the chum game, they're now in charge of tactics. Anyone who has a sense of pride about what they do is going to go where it's appreciated. If it's not appreciated or wanted in the military, (which was the CLEAR message sent, and I wasn't alone getting that message) then they'll go where it is.
And it wasn't me they disliked. My unit commander and vice commander both talked to me about staying, and in the latter's case, recommended I look into becoming an officer, which was a strain not to laugh in his face when he said it.
As I said before, I can't speak to the other services, but those aren't the ones pushing Cyber warfare as much anyway. In the Air Force, it was a clear message, "You're a good airman, and ready to be a good NCO, but we just arn't serious about these computer thingies." So I went to a company that did take my skills seriously. And I highly doubt I'm alone.