When we fight over IT, nobody wins

I don't know what industry you work in, but everywhere I've worked (in financial services IT) managers were better paid than those they managed - often very significantly so.

Maybe you should try something other than financial services.

(My experience in health care, government, insurance, and financial services is that "normal" rules of business and supply/demand don't always apply. They have worked hard for 100 years to insulate themselves.)

For me, it's about passion and interest. I'd much rather be in a creation role: building, coding, designing. [Middle] Management, on the other hand, seems to be more about babby-sitting other people's kids.

This is probably true up to a certain point - the executive ranks. The highest ranking "engineers" probably do more "business" stuff than code and are basically executives, except in name.