You are right, although not on the level you perhaps intended.
To me there are the people who make software that contribute to people's lives and receive funds roughly commensurate to that.
And then ... there are the software afficionados. The people who blow smoke around about what such-and-such a version of gcc used to be like and how they would never commit a faux pas like calling Application.DoEvents() or not return a method immediately when the answer is arrived at.
These are the people who polish their publicly funded government forgotten-ware and then bloviate to their students about their arcane little successes that have some kind of inherent meaning disclosing their intelligence to the universe but really don't do anything for, well, you know, ordinary human beings ... who don't know about all the SW ettiquettes and posturings, etc.
Yeah, I've spent a lot of time with scheme people. I don't think it's a persuasive case for lambdas. It was part of the reason I quit my job and started doing C#.
Getting rich is a sad goal that devours peoples' entire lives, but at least you can say it involves doing something people will pay money for (at least in the private sector). The index you mentioned is interesting. I've looked at a few, and I'll have to check it out, but here's another one: dice.com. If a language is on a job posting it means people are paying money for it, and the only people getting rich off schemes are the ones who are into the government/university's back pocket.
All of that is to say ... yeah, I can't give you my geek card because I never had one. So, on some level, you are correct.
JavaScript is a pretty good example (not very polished, I might add). I should have brought that up since it is older.
