It's an artifact of the way the system is evolving.

I know exactly what the problem is, because I've experienced it, from both sides of the counter, in both private and public enterprise. The more experienced and competent employee is either quickly promoted until he reaches his level of incompetence (you will recall the Peter Principle), which means he winds up as a clueless manager; he quits because he is not rewarded for his competence, or he eventually winds up earning too much due to seniority to be kept on and is encouraged or forced to quit so his job can be passed to some eager and enthusiastic, but inexperienced, effengee.

The new hire has been determined by HR to be barely qualified to handle the typical situation on his job, but for the 20% of the problems that take up 80% of the effort (the ones HR don't have coded in their job descriptions), he is helpless. At this point, the office usually brings in a consultant, who hires foreigners and temps to solve the problem, or reorganizes so that job function can be handed off to another department.

Talk to the youngsters coming into your trade today, the clever ones, they are not thinking in terms of advancing in their profession, they are programmed into leveraging their careers. The two are not the same, and getting too good at your job is career suicide.