[koffiezet]

> but my ability to learn new things rapidly

This is one of the issues in my experience, you might be in the minority there. I'm pushing 40 and notice I have a lot more interest in new technology and stacks than many of my colleagues (I've always been like that) - but the 'more experienced' they get, the harder it becomes to convince them of the advantages of new approaches, and disadvantages of their 'proven' way of working, especially seasoned developers.

They are also usually in more senior or team leader positions, which means they are very influential or can call the shots. I've seen months wasted on projects that could be just as well written in Python in a few days by a single developer, just because the 'senior dev' had something against interpreted languages and the only option for him was C++. As much as I liked the guy personally, and respected his skillset, he seriously limited technological progress within that company - which was a huge part of the reason I quit there and became freelance. Ever since - I've seen quite a few very similar situations.

Young people will jump into things without looking - which is not good, but saying no to them and blocking off their stupid ideas is a lot easier than saying no to a guy with 30 years of experience...