I agree with the thrust of everything you mentioned. Just wanted to chime in.
>>They were never given big, important or new projects<<
Basically you have answered the OP's main angst. There are names for this kind of thing, you know ("Ageism"?). Also, because of these kinds of actions, these people are simply losing their 'relevance' within the context of the organisation's overall strategic direction. Now how bad do you think it is for one's morale and self-actualisation? In a way, damned if you do, damned if you don't, isn' it?
Also, in some orgs, the "seniors" are "expected to understand the architecture" (read: more arcana and API call memorisations) so they can "guide"/"mentor" the "juniors" and "participate" in "propelling" the organisation, blah blah. And this invariably leads to what the OP's saying >>It's about skimming great oceans of APIs that you could spend years studying and learning, but the market will have moved on by then and that's no fun anyway<<
>>They were never given big, important or new projects<< Basically you have answered the OP's main angst. There are names for this kind of thing, you know ("Ageism"?). Also, because of these kinds of actions, these people are simply losing their 'relevance' within the context of the organisation's overall strategic direction. Now how bad do you think it is for one's morale and self-actualisation? In a way, damned if you do, damned if you don't, isn' it?
Also, in some orgs, the "seniors" are "expected to understand the architecture" (read: more arcana and API call memorisations) so they can "guide"/"mentor" the "juniors" and "participate" in "propelling" the organisation, blah blah. And this invariably leads to what the OP's saying >>It's about skimming great oceans of APIs that you could spend years studying and learning, but the market will have moved on by then and that's no fun anyway<<