I cannot help but feel that this is a cold hard fact in the I.T. service industry. Those that truly have a 'passion' for technology and wanting to learn seems to be dying off. Am I wrong?

Check this blog post: http://blogs.technet.com/b/joscon/archive/2012/05/07/a-dying-breed.aspx

I completely agree with this statement, "if you cant troubleshoot you cant do the job no matter how intelligently gifted you are".