[ahoyhere]

"The real crime is that programmers have so little time for the exploratory work that the career requires that they have to do all of that off-hours."

One should be wary of making generalizations like this. "Programmers have" or "Programmers don't have" groups an awful lot of extremely different people, and an extreme variation of experience, into one seemingly whole glossy industry.

When I programmed for hire, I never had any problem at all learning on the job. My jobs paid for books, training, and conferences. (Two of my jobs paid for conferences where I was accepted to speak -- that was part of my negotiation.) I also never had any issue charging for research & exploration time explicitly labeled as such in my freelance contracts.

Programmers have one of the world's most in-demand skills. If they have a sucky job that limits their growth, well, they should take those in-demand skills elsewhere. If they don't know how, or are afraid, they should suck it up and figure out how. Read a book on salary negotiation or how to attract better clients. Ask somebody. There's tons of info out there. There's no excuse. If they believe that they have nothing special to offer, so they are at a disadvantage in negotiations, then they have to figure out "Is that true?" and if yes "Then what can I do to gain leverage?"

Take control of your lives, folks.