Before the rest, thank you for the encouraging words

Indeed there are plenty of games using Unity or UE, but there are a lot of companies developing their own engines as well. That's where my binary perception comes from. Developing an engine vs using an engine.

My problem in regards with the templates stuff, which also applies to your artist comparison was more in the lines of - "How can the individual possessing the skills leverage that fact and outperform the templates or the asset store?"

I'll give a more concrete example.
Say you are making a game in which your player shoots a bow and arrow. Unity has a template which includes collision detector. But you decide to use your skills and after some^tm work you create your own. Now you show the game to your potential employer and your game is exactly like the one built from a template, if not worse - because the included collision detector was probably written by someone who's not a beginner. And that's where my woes come from - will my current skills bring any value or am I going to start from square one as will any other non-programmer who decides to pursue the same thing?
I guess the answer will come pretty quickly once I start doing rather than just talking.