>I feel sorry for any company whose hiring managers look only at what letters an applicant has on her resume, and the number of years after those letters. Someone charged with finding good people should have the skill to look beyond VFP/VB and see how well the programmer knows programming, and how good te applicant is at problem solving. It might take a good VFP programmer 3-4 months to become productive in VB, but after that a bad programmer who already knew VFP will never catch up.

I agree. However, problem solving is extremely difficult to judge from a resume or interview. I try to give a few short problems to people I interview, but even then, it doesn't really show their abilities. That's one reason recruiters look at the letters and number of years a person has. The assumption is that after a period of time, the kinds and number of problems you've had to solve will make you a better programmer.