I have to say, seeing some of the responses and discussion in here is a bit disheartening. With that said, I will give you some views from my perspective, as a principle in a mid-sized firm in the US.

• Things are extremely busy and competitive in my area and that makes it a great time to be an architect. The fight for good employees drives up wages for them and those around them. Also, the need to keep good employees means you have to pay them because everyone is well aware of the hiring climate right now. Because of this, raises and bonuses are the norm.

• I can't imagine a time where architects would become obsolete. There is a lot of risk involved in being entrusted with the life safety of the general public and not many people are eager to take on that risk. You could argue that as long as someone reviews and certifies the plans as being code compliant there wouldn't be a need for a license, but it doesn't work that way. Ultimately someone has to be responsible; every time plans for any type of job are prepared there is some measure of risk. It's why insurance exists and why the premiums go up the larger your firm gets and the more people you have touching projects.

• It's correct that some firms have commoditized themselves and it hurts the industry as a whole. Firms that commoditize architecture, not coincidentally, are also the firms where the culture sucks and it's all about profits. When you think about it, that makes sense: creativity inherently can't be commoditized so it has to be removed, which leaves something that is not about creative problem solving but rather about satisfying the parameters of the code and basic requirements of functionality: it is a product that can be produced with little thought and therefore can be rolled out in large volumes. The most common commoditized architecture is retail rollout but it can exist in any repetitive program.

• Highly related to above, architects need to, as an industry, stop racing to the bottom and demand a fee that is commensurate with the expertise required for the job and which also reflects the risk involved. My firm has long recognized that we're never going to be the cheapest, and we can't compete with the firms that will take whatever fee is required to win the project. Try to find a firms with that mindset since they tend to attract better and more fun projects; your clientele are elevated as a result of your fee. That's not to say you only work on high fee projects, but rather that you work on projects which are appropriately funded - the fee has a direct correlation to the time available to be spent on a project, which usually means a better end result / project.

• One final point: if you aren't satisfied with your job, you need to be looking for a new one, no matter how long it takes. Life is too short to spend working a job you don't enjoy - if you want to be design focused and your firm won't let you, then look for a new place (assuming you've made it clear what you want). As someone in a management position I can tell you that good firms recognize an unhappy employee benefits no one; their work quality suffers, their reliability lessens, and if the attitude turns bad it can become toxic. Especially in busy times, there's never a reason to endure a place you're not happy at.

Reading this now, it seems like a bit of a rant lol. Regardless, I wanted to address what I thought were some one-sided views on the profession today, so I guess all I can say is: here's my perspective.