[luckyisgood]

How about you offer your client that it would be YOU who would help find another person for that other project for your current client, so you form a team of two? If your client is not a developer or a technical person, it's 100x harder for them to find a suitable person for the job (and I hear you: you wouldn't want to work with Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee either nor should you lower your standards). Whatever needs to be done on that task, chances are you would be an ideal dev lead / project manager / senior dev for that task on that project. You could present yourself as a partner on that project who would do some of the work, but that way you'd be slowly moving away from coding and more in the direction of managing / strategic consulting. That way you can demand more money because you're adding more value, and you'd be responsible for the other person. Recognizing good dev talent is hard, that's the hidden value that many developers forget that they bring to the table.

And yes, networking helps. I have my own small "mastermind" group and the best thing I get out of it is inspiration, bursting my own bubble I have locked myself into, and decreasing fear of the future. I just wrote about it yesterday on my personal blog, so that part of your comment rang very near and very true to me.

In the end, you already know what to do :) I see from your comment that your direction is clear. Good luck with everything!

[moron4hire]

Thanks. I have such a group of people, friends I have an email circle with. I try to read back through our emails over the years every once in a while. Things are definitely better today than back then. It just doesn't always feel like it.

[CyberFonic]

A friend of mine did something similar. He helped his client hire his replacement. Setup up a firm and then ended up picking up even more work from his replacement.