>you'd have to sell to a hell of a lot of people to make any decent money
No. This right here is where you're way off.
Some hypothetical math: $3.99 app, $2.79 after Apple's cut.
$2.79 X 50 sales/day = $139.5 revune/day = $50,917 per year.
Enough to live and quite conservative if you make a quality product.