Hi Luke,
You have interesting views, but they are myopic and misdirected in my opinion. Real web designers and programmers have worked hard to learn the skill-set they have, but use their skills to create solutions for the not-so-capable to use, and AppThemes guys fit your definition of the former.
Having said that, if you really look around the forum, you will find that AppThemes products are hardly a complete package and their themes lack a lot of important functionality, normal users don't have answers to the challenges of adding such functionality on their own, and are generally struggling to create even child themes, which is essential to use regularly updated themes from AppThemes. This is where other developers like you and me can help them. If you can create special things, go ahead and may be you will own the next AppThemes. Developers don't work for each other, they work for people who cannot build websites on their own. If you are good enough, you would not find opportunities hard to come by.
Regards,
Mohsin