When I started my software career in 1991, I wrote an application that "peeked" and "poked" individual pixels to and from the screen. It had a meta declaration process (kind-of like xml/xsl, except it wasn't xml) and it could even draw graphs. It was called, originally enough, "Newdisplay". It took me ages to get this spot on and I was very proud of myself when I finished it. It is still in daily use with Neat Contech, my employer at the time.
Today though, I can get 10 times the functionality using Windows or a web front end with substantially less effort. Now I can display some serious data, beautifully styled and packaged for edit by dragging and dropping a datagrid and binding it with 3 lines of code. This also means that just about anyone that can switch a PC on, can do the same thing. Yes the datagrid may not be the best or most economical way of displaying data, but who cares? Business just wants to see a screen with data. They really don't care anymore how this happens as long as performance is adequate.
The new Visual Studio is even more a case in point. Now you can pretty much set up an entire user database and web authentication system by dragging-and-dropping controls around. Surely you all know what I mean. I've used front-end development in my example, but the same applies for all the tiers. Just look at all of the MS application blocks.
I quote from Can the Programmer's Job be De-Skilled? by Drs. Nico, Turner & Kearns:
As the field of software development becomes more professionalized, and the software development process becomes more formalized, there is a growing belief that the job of the front-line programmer is becoming.or must become, out of economic necessity.de-skilled.
I'm hoping to get some response from the community on this, because I hope to be proven wrong. C'mon all you hardcore software geeks, prove me wrong!