What do I mean by a skilled wireless engineer? Do I mean they are CWNE or CCIE or AC[]X? No, not at all. I simply mean someone that understands wireless and the challenges it brings when trying to design. It’s the person that knows about Co-Channel Interference and Adjacent Channel Interference, someone that understands when and how to use 20/40/80MHz channel widths, the person that knows you have to do a survey to get things right, etc.
I think sometimes we (myself included), as wireless engineers, make it seem impossible for people to think they can unlock the "secrets of Wi-Fi". No doubt there are some complicated things, but no more so than some other enterprise technologies out there as Blake points out. He thinks it's the PERCEPTION of wireless be too high an entry level and I tend to agree.
Maybe we need to preach some more "bare bones" wireless for the network folks out there that don't have the budget, or support, to access the expensive tools we all desire. Things like knowing WHAT to look for when doing a wireless scan, or basic understanding of channel management could go a long way to helping the many over-burdened IT individuals out there saddled with the task to install a WLAN. At the very least enough knowledge to know when to call in an "expert". In the end what we really need is to bring more people into the wireless fold.