I couldn't disagree more with you. Usually I just read these posts but I actually had to register just to reply to this. I'm an engineer in and out. I wrote my own Load Runner game in BASIC at 11, at 14 I moved on to C++ and at 15 I bought my own copy MASM 6.11 for $170 from CompUSA store. My point is that I absolutely love software development and I love staying up nights not because I'm behind schedule but because that is my most productive time when co-workers/friends/family are not bugging me and I can dedicate 4-6 hours to solid coding. I either write my own code to stay current on technology (currently WPF and ASP.NET) or I work on long-term improvements for my company's product. Again, more for fun that being forced to do it.
I also just finished my MBA degree and I believe it is very valuable. This degree is just all the other ones, you get out of it only what you want to get. Yeah, to get "a piece of paper" it really didn't take that much effort, you do work, take tests... easy. But if you care, you get much more out of it. You learn what makes your boss make the decisions that he makes. What motivates you, your manager, his boss and all the way up to CEO. You also learn why your department is charged $1 for every person that uses Office Communicator. It is not as stupid as it first appears to be. It's amazing how much of MBA is really common sense, as your friend pointed out, but once you leave school, you'll also realize how uncommon common sense actually is. I've seen our management do some really "silly" things and then I observed the exact outcomes of those decisions that the school told me would happen. If you think young engineers make mistakes which waste man-weeks, higher level management can and does make mistakes which waste man-years.
It does seem like MBA's are becoming the scapegoat for a lot of the problems (did you read Wall Street Journal article where MBA's were blamed for the housing bubble). In reality, the degree gives you tools and it's up to you if you want to learn and use those tools, or if you just want to graduate. And once you have those tools, it's up to you how to use them (i.e. you get a hammer, now you can go around building houses or breaking windows).
It took me 4.5 years to get my MBA and I do not regret going back to school at all. I also have no intention of using it in the near future as I absolutely love coding and building some pretty nifty things. But eventually, when I want to focus more on my family and getting back to rebuilding that Camaro that is sitting in my garage, I will shift into management. I do not share the view that older developers can't keep up, but I can definitely see that older developers may not want to do what we have to do in order to stay valuable and having to learn new technologies every few years definitely is time consuming.
