I have never met a good, _experienced_ MS developer or admin who lacked a certification and it negatively affected their ability or image.

I have met plenty people who held certifications whom I would not trust on any of my production systems, and where it was apparent their time would have been better spent gaining experience, not test scores.

These "Master" certs were time consuming and expensive, no? As they are backed by a sales based entity (as with most IT certifications) if the revenue did not support the program, it gets canned.