Well I think there is a major difference, you can be a perpetual grad student but get good stuff done. Usually you end up as a post doc for a while but never get a real prof position for whatever political reason. I know a lot of good grad student that are in school after almost a decade (in grad school).

So the ineffectual part is a major difference.

There also people like me, sticking around universities for a while, using public funds to code cool projects that wouldn't happen anywhere else because it's not something that would be commercializable. I wouldn't call myself ineffectual ;)