Excruciatingly low contract rates

[chicane]

I think I would put this another way:

Any fool can program.
Few can program well.
Few if any agents know the difference.
Muppets rule the market.
So: there's no percentage in being good.

Couldn't have put it better myself (apart from your use of the word "percentage", but I get the overall message)...

...the question is, does the entry barrier to something like .NET (ie the need to do quite a lot of studying and practice of the language & framework before you can create anything meaningful) keep the muppets out, and the demand/rate high?

Or would you say your theory applies to most/all of the contract programming world out there? I don't want to go back to support, and don't have 20 years spare to become a SAP consultant