I think the context is different now. Have a friend who's flying a pilatus right now. Before college (when we were all wanting military) he said "screw that, im going for the money" then came 9/11 the money was drained away and he said "i'm just happy to have a flying job" he was able to land a good corporate gig w/ the pilatus though, so he's doing alright, but not making 300k/yr. If you got in it for 300k, well, it's gonna be a tough road to get there. If you joined up for 150k, you might have better luck. Heck, if you never leave the regionals you could make over 100,000 year and have more than half the month off, and despite that it's still not what it used to be, in reality it is still a "good" profession. The bar just needs to reverse it's trend and start working itself up, and not down anymore.