I would agree except for two reasons - having certifications definitely gets you at least to the interview and some certifications are good starting points, just I haven't found many lately?

But - I have he same experience as you except 30+ years experience - most certifications today are not good at all, too vendor centric, too specialized and probably already outdated! It was called training earlier but now when corporations don't do that any more living in (false) hope that they can find people with latest training and fire them after short period when their certifications, oops.. sorry knowledge, gets old. And, of course, vendors see them a way to make money!

The problem for me (and the company/companies!) is that now I have to train these certified persons not just what, how and why we do things this or that way but also trying to keep them up to date and how to think! A huge waste of time (and money!) - I don't have to do that with experienced persons who already know that they have to continuously learn new! And they do!

Now, I have to say, I have 2 feet pile of certificates from 70's and 80's, all paid by employers, all nice looking (heh!), gave me a start, etc. BUT the huge difference is that they, even the vendor supported(!), are more why, for what purpose and how to go from there instead of today , how to push a button, how to write code, method, object in a vendor preferred language, how to configure a certain product, how to memorize a RFC or (marketing!) abbreviations, file names, configuration screens, etc or just to do what you are told even you know it will not work!

I don't want to undermine the importance of certificates but the way they are sold - I have had incidents (not picking anybody but just my life!) with Cisco, Microsoft, Oracle, etc and even IBM which is (my opinion - much) better than most - with "certified" persons, on very high technical level, who didn't even understand the problems? Not their fault(!), very bright persons but "conditioned" - after a long and arduous talks they actually turned out to be very good help (and many have sent "thank you" notes later).

San Antonio - I love that place, the people, the river walk, the jazz, the..! If my kids (most of them) wouldn't be living on west coast - that would be one of my first choices in US (now - look Canary Islands), money is not all!