Really I think the "game" so to speak is to move from being a programmer or development engineer into things like project management or solution modeling. Sure, the point is valid that hiring is "biased" towards kids in their early twenties who are really good programmers. But the idea I would think is to progress up the ladder so that when one is in mid-career, one is not doing the day-to-day programming so much as more management type of tasks. Myself, right now I do test automation, and so spend my days mostly writing test suites using the silktest language and the like. But I don't plan to be still doing that years from now. Hopefully I can sort of move up the ladder a bit into being like a test lead or something. So instead of leaving the industry, I recommend people look to see about ways of climbing the proverbial ladder.